Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday verdict at last

DERRY: Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness carried a sub-machinegun at the Bloody Sunday march, but did nothing to provoke the “unjustified and unjustifiable” killing of 13 unarmed activists in Derry 38 years ago.

Releasing the findings of the 12-year inquiry, Prime Minister David Cameron said early today British troops had fired on innocent and unarmed protesters without warning.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Cameron apologised on behalf of the government and country for the killings.

Clutching photos of their loved ones, relatives of the 13 men who died had earlier marched silently through Derry.

Each black-and-white image was captioned in red with the slogan “Set the Truth Free” as the families marched to the town hall in Northern Ireland’s second city to finally hear the findings of Mark Saville.

“They’ve been dead for 38 years – maybe now we’ll be able to lay them to rest,” said Kay Duddy, whose 17-year-old brother Jackie was among those gunned down when British soldiers opened fire on a civil rights march.

A photograph of Jackie’s dying body being carried through the streets of Derry behind a priest waving a white flag became one of the iconic images of that day, and was replicated in a huge mural near the march site.

On nearby Rossville Street, where most of the shootings took place, Ms Duddy gathered with relatives by the memorial to the victims.

The monument says the 13 victims and a 14th man who died of his wounds six months later were murdered by British paratroopers. The British military had maintained the men were armed and the soldiers opened fire only after coming under attack.

After a widely condemned 1972 inquiry confirmed the army’s version, the relatives had expressed confidence that Lord Saville would make clear their innocence.

Ms Duddy’s brother was accused of being a petrol bomber, which she denied. “It is so important the stigma is removed for him,” she said.

John Kelly, whose brother Michael was killed, was looking for proof that the victims, seven of them teenagers, were doing nothing wrong beyond participating in a banned march against the British government’s policy of internment without trial. “We have never looked for an apology . . . it’s about the acknowledgment of what happened that day and the declaration of innocence,” the 61-year-old said on the march in Derry yesterday.

“Hopefully we will see justice be done.”

Mr Kelly would like to see the report end in prosecutions of the British soldiers and officers involved, saying the paratrooper who killed Michael – identified only as Soldier F in the inquiry hearings – was a “serial killer”.

“Soldier F murdered my brother. He also murdered three more that day,” he said.

“Serial killers are prosecuted and serial killers go to jail, and as far as I’m concerned that’s where Soldier F should go – to jail.”

Mr Kelly’s sister, Kathleen Cooley, said that after the killings, many young men in the city turned to violence, swelling the ranks of the Irish Republican Army volunteers and fuelling the deadly civil strife that only ended with the Anglo-Irish peace agreement of 1998. “A lot of young boys, they wanted to join the IRA because they were so angry, and that’s how the city got out of control,” she said.

Walking with the relatives was Northern Ireland Mr McGuinness, a member of Sinn Fein who has admitted to being part of the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday. He said last night he had answered questions about his role at the Saville inquiry, insisting: “I’ve nothing to fear from the truth, absolutely nothing.”

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