Bloody Sunday: Soldier F faces murder charges

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

Thanks for the info. I just feel that even if there has been no amnesty, there most certainly has been a reluctance to bring people to justice for any pre-GFA crimes since the signing of the GFA.

Again, NO...what makes you think there is a reluctance to bring people to justice...FFS there was the Historical Enquiries Team....up until 2014. Granted the initial team was closed but is/was being replaced by another, smaller team

 

[BobKowalski]

You miss my point.

Evidence aside, the GFA has meant an amnesty against prosecution so why now are we prosecuting a single soldier for something that happened nearly 50 years ago?

Its an entirely political decision to do so but as always, too many forget the politics woks both ways and whilst one community will be happy with it, another wont.

Is that respecting the GFA?

By all means prosecute. If he has done wrong he should answer for his crimes but then so too should every single terrorist alive that we have evidence on yes?

I don’t miss the point. We do not know what evidence is being used to prosecute this one soldier and why it was so different to the evidence that led to the other soldiers under investigation not being prosecuted. Until we do know that I will reserve judgement.

Also I am not convinced any side is ‘happy’ with it. Seems to me a lot of the problems stem from the fact that there are ‘sides’. How about we just all root for the ‘not shooting unarmed civilians’ side irrespective of who is doing it.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Easy to say and qualify when you're not the ones coming under fire, maybe they could have been more professional,
I'm not a trained soldier, so can't say. What I'm arguing against is the assertion that the Paras were facing unarmed civilians,
if someone was shooting at them, then clearly, they were not.

Lord Widgery? Is that you?

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Are you's just deliberately ignoring the terms of the GFA or cant be arsed to understand?

It wasnt an amnesty on prosecution...it was about releasing those who had been caught and convicted....it was not about not prosecuting people for their crimes....it was releasing those already in prison.

Yes there were the "on the run letters"...but they came to light after...that wasnt something that was considered and agreed upon by the entire country.

You are agreeing/condoning that because Martin McGuinness supposedly fired a shot, that 28 people be shot...14 of them killed, some teenagers...and a number of them were shot in the back whilst trying to run away.

A subsequent multimillion pound inquiry concluded that these action were unlawful, that ALL of the victims were innocent and unarmed....yet you think noone is accountable? That only one of those soldiers should not be charged? Of the 17 soldiers found to be involved, in retaliation to one supposedly fired shot, none of them should face the consequences of firing indiscriminately into crowds of people.

You genuinely think thats OK?

Really?

Again, this was the start of the troubles....there was no precedent that made those paras think they were in a war-zone. This was the streets of britain....similar situation to the poll tax riots, the miners strikes....would it have been perfectly OK to shoot and kills those protestors?

I am reiterating what is probably the universally held view in Britain, that prosecuting a soldier for this event,
after releasing convicted murderers, yes after prosecution, but releasing them anyway, is perverse. You state
that those on the run receiving get off letters wasn't widely supported, and I accept that, but it happened, they received them.
So that can not just blithely be ignored, the fact is that IRA and other terrorists are not now facing the same prospects
as this bloke. Just so you're aware, I'm not blaming people who hold your view, my ire is directed at our own government
here.

 

[cibaman]

Are you's just deliberately ignoring the terms of the GFA or cant be arsed to understand?

It wasnt an amnesty on prosecution...it was about releasing those who had been caught and convicted....it was not about not prosecuting people for their crimes....it was releasing those already in prison.

Yes there were the "on the run letters"...but they came to light after...that wasnt something that was considered and agreed upon by the entire country.

You are agreeing/condoning that because Martin McGuinness supposedly fired a shot, that 28 people be shot...14 of them killed, some teenagers...and a number of them were shot in the back whilst trying to run away.

A subsequent multimillion pound inquiry concluded that these action were unlawful, that ALL of the victims were innocent and unarmed....yet you think noone is accountable? That only one of those soldiers should not be charged? Of the 17 soldiers found to be involved, in retaliation to one supposedly fired shot, none of them should face the consequences of firing indiscriminately into crowds of people.

You genuinely think thats OK?

Really?

Again, this was the start of the troubles....there was no precedent that made those paras think they were in a war-zone. This was the streets of britain....similar situation to the poll tax riots, the miners strikes....would it have been perfectly OK to shoot and kills those protestors?

I'm not sure you're final paragraph is correct. There were over 200 deaths in NI related to the troubles in the 3 years before Bloody Sunday. It wasn't in anyway comparable to the poll tax riots. The situation had seriously deteriorated since the introduction of internment in August 1971.

Part of the problem was that the Parachute Regiment was entirely the wrong unit to be deployed in such a sensitive situation.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

I'm not sure you're final paragraph is correct. There were over 200 deaths in NI related to the troubles in the 3 years before Bloody Sunday. It wasn't in anyway comparable to the poll tax riots. The situation had seriously deteriorated since the introduction of internment in August 1971.

Part of the problem was that the Parachute Regiment was entirely the wrong unit to be deployed in such a sensitive situation.

I can't understand that either, and yes, the Paras were entirely the wrong unit.

 

[M18CTID]

Again, NO...what makes you think there is a reluctance to bring people to justice...FFS there was the Historical Enquiries Team....up until 2014. Granted the initial team was closed but is/was being replaced by another, smaller team

How many pre-GFA incidents related to The Troubles have led to court cases since the GFA was signed? I'm not wumming here. I'm just curious to know

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

I am reiterating what is probably the universally held view in Britain, that prosecuting a soldier for this event,
after releasing convicted murderers, yes after prosecution, but releasing them anyway, is perverse. You state
that those on the run receiving get off letters wasn't widely supported, and I accept that, but it happened, they received them.
So that can not just blithely be ignored, the fact is that IRA and other terrorists are not now facing the same prospects
as this bloke. Just so you're aware, I'm not blaming people who hold your view, my ire is directed at our own government
here.

And it was your own government who sent those letters as far as I'm aware so at least you're directing your ire at the proper doorstep.
Those letters were not part of the GFA.
I watched Newsnight on BBC NI last night and Eamonn McCann and a senior representative from Decorum http://www.victimsservice.org/vss_support_group/decorum-ni/
were discussing the decision yesterday.
I was very impressed with the professional attitude of the Decorum guy, who basically said that if the regiment acted beyond the ROE and the evidence is there to charge this one soldier then that is what must be done. He was very dignified in his response and seemed to take great pride in the general professionalism of the vast majority of those who served through the troubles. But he wouldn't make excuses for what happened that day.
Both he and Eamonn McCann were in agreement that they would prefer that someone in charge should be made accountable as high up to government level if need be.
I think the Bogside community know this and would love some commander in chief held accountable, rather than what the British public at large seem to consider a scapegoat.
If he is a scapegoat (I don't know the evidence) then who is hanging him out to dry? Look at your own Government/Army chain of command/Lord something or other, no doubt.

The point was made that the perception is at times that the same willingness to pursue cases of paramilitaries crimes that are decades old, is not there.
This may well be true. Is it right? Probably not. I'm in the the keep moving forward camp. But as I said before it wasn't my family members killed.

Whatever comes out of this, muddying the waters with glib unverifiable hearsay comments that try to rewrite history and second guess a £200m tribunal that took twelve years to put together, won't help move the situation forward at all.

 

[BobKowalski]

I am reiterating what is probably the universally held view in Britain, that prosecuting a soldier for this event,
after releasing convicted murderers, yes after prosecution, but releasing them anyway, is perverse. You state
that those on the run receiving get off letters wasn't widely supported, and I accept that, but it happened, they received them.
So that can not just blithely be ignored, the fact is that IRA and other terrorists are not now facing the same prospects
as this bloke. Just so you're aware, I'm not blaming people who hold your view, my ire is directed at our own government
here.

Equally a dozen or so other soldiers are also not facing the prospect of prosecution either and no one pretends the one soldier who is facing charges was responsible for the killing of all 13 people on the day. A very high bar was set on the bringing of charges in this case and this means soldiers who were responsible for some of the deaths will not be prosecuted. I can’t say that I approve of this anymore then I do with the issuing of ‘on the run’ letters to IRA members but I also accept that people were trying to bring this bloody conflict to an end and I don’t have all the answers.

That one soldier was charged and the rest were not does say to me that the evidence in this one case was different. How different and why we don’t know and until we do I don’t see how we can make a judgement.

 

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

How many pre-GFA incidents related to The Troubles have led to court cases since the GFA was signed? I'm not wumming here. I'm just curious to know

I wouldnt have a clue as to how many....but there was significant effort made to continue the investigations....so for anyone to suggest it was all forgotten about following GFA is ridiculous


The team had three objectives:[2]

• To work with families of those who had been killed.
• To ensure that cases were conducted to modern policing standards, and
• To carry out the work in such a way that the wider community had confidence in the outcomes.

Working with families was at the heart of the HET objectives, with a family liaison process in place,[3] and the HET undertaking to provide each affected family with a copy of the relevant report.

It was headed by Commander David Cox, formerly of the London Metropolitan Police, and consisted of a team of 100 investigators and supporting staff, and a budget of £30 million.

HET was split into two distinct teams: Review and Investigation. The Review team was staffed by police officers employed and seconded from outside Northern Ireland, while the Investigation team has been recruited locally.

The team aimed to fulfil its mandate by 2011. However, the investigators - along with the Police Ombudsman - agreed that they would require further time to work through the outstanding cases.[4] Cases were generally handles in chronological order.

On 29 January 2008, it was announced that the Team would reopen files on 124 deaths resulting from fatal shootings by British Army soldiers between 1970 and 1973. At that time, under an agreement between the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), military witnesses to deaths were often initially interviewed by the Royal Military Police instead of the RUC. Doubts had since been raised about the independence and effectiveness of these investigations.[5]

In February 2008 it was confirmed in the House of Commons that the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) was to examine all deaths attributed to The Troubles from January 1969 to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, equating to 3,268 deaths which occurred in 2,516 incidents, or 'cases'. At that time 1,039 cases had been allocated to the HET business process, and the team had a total of 175 staff.[6]

Major reforms to the structure and resourcing of PSNI announced in September 2014 meant the closure of the Historical Enquiries Team, to be replaced by 'a much smaller unit' within PSNI.[7]