Contrasting viewpoints outside court ahead of Soldier F trial

Sharply contrasting viewpoints were given outside Belfast Crown Court as a former paratrooper prepared to go on trial over the Bloody Sunday shootings.

The veteran, who cannot be identified and is known as Soldier F, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney, and five attempted murders, all of which he has pleaded not guilty to.

Police maintained a presence as families of those killed in Derry on January 30, 1972 and a large number of supporters walked to the courts complex in the city centre holding pictures of the 13 people who were killed.

They included Foyle MP Colum Eastwood (SDLP), North Belfast MP John Finucane (Sinn Fein) and families of those killed in a number of other atrocities in Northern Ireland.

John McKinney, a brother of William McKinney, one of the two men Soldier F is accused of murdering, described a momentous day.

It comes 53 years after the shootings, two public inquiries, a fight to have to have those killed acknowledged as innocent civilians, an apology from a prime minister and the judicial ruling that prevented the Public Prosecution Service from halting the prosecution.

“Everything that we have achieved to this point has been through relentless commitment and a refusal to lie down,” Mr McKinney said.

“Today, our message is simple: towards justice, we shall overcome.”

Nearby, Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner David Johnstone and TUV leader Jim Allister also called for justice.

Mr Johnstone said 130 soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland in 1972, and highlighted the murder of Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers Peter Gilgun, 26, and David Montgomery, 20, who were shot dead in an attack on their patrol car in Derry days before Bloody Sunday.

“The families here today, just like those families, suffer pain, and that pain is ongoing and that should be remembered today, and every day,” he said.

Mr Allister said veterans generally have “selectively been picked upon for investigation and for prosecution”.

“While meantime multiple terrorists continue to walk our streets effectively exercising immunity from prosecution,” he added.

“It’s to call out that disparity in treatment that I as a politician wish to be here to associate myself with the cause of victims who have been so picked upon in recent years, and which this Government intends to pick upon, both in terms of inquests, investigations and prosecutions in the years going forward.”