BELFAST (Reuters) -The trial of the sole British soldier charged with murder over the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” killings of 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland began on Monday, over half a century on from one of the defining moments of The Troubles.
The soldier, who cannot be identified and is known as Soldier F, is accused of murdering two men and attempting to murder five others when members of a British army regiment opened fire in the mainly Irish nationalist city of Londonderry.
It remains the worst single shooting incident of three decades of sectarian violence involving nationalists seeking a united Ireland, pro-British unionists wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom and British forces. A 1998 peace deal largely ended the bloodshed.
After years of campaigning by victims’ families, prosecutors decided in 2019 there was insufficient evidence to charge 16 other former soldiers.
They pressed on with charges against Soldier F, who sat in the dock on Monday surrounded on all four sides by black sheets with a microphone hanging from the ceiling above.
Lawyers for the prosecution said the case had a specific and narrow focus on the shooting of seven of the civilians as they ran away through a residential courtyard.
“The shooting was unnecessary and it was gratuitous and was carried out with an intent to kill,” Louis Mably, a lawyer for the prosecution, told Belfast Crown Court.
Soldier F has already pleaded not guilty to the seven charges.
Before the proceedings started, relatives of some of the victims marched to the courthouse, holding photographs of those who had been killed and a banner saying “towards justice”.
The black and white pictures included William McKinney and James Wray, the two men in their 20s who Soldier F is accused of killing.
The British government apologised for the “unjustified and unjustifiable” killings in 2010 after a judicial inquiry found that the victims were innocent and had posed no threat to the military.
Soldier F was charged in 2019 but prosecutors initially decided not to go to trial over fears key evidence could be ruled inadmissible after a similar trial collapsed over issues regarding the admissibility of evidence.
Northern Ireland’s High Court quashed the decision to discontinue the murder case in 2022 after a legal challenge by the victims’ families.
(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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