10 shot dead in Army IRA swoop ‘totally innocent’
TEN people shot dead dur- ing an Army operation to detain suspected IRA members 50 years ago were ‘entirely innocent’, a coroner ruled yesterday.
Families of those killed in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, in 1971, had campaigned for decades to clear loved ones who were previously branded gunmen or IRA associates.
Coroner Mrs Justice Keegan ruled that nine of those shot dead were killed by soldiers. She said there was not enough evidence to decide who killed the tenth victim, but condemned the ‘abject failing’ at the time to ‘properly investigate the death of an innocent civilian’.
Her conclusions came after Northern Ireland’s longest-running inquest – which began in late 2018 and heard from more than 150 witnesses including 60 former soldiers. A priest waving a white handkerchief as he gave a man the last rites and a mother- ofeight shot in the face were among the victims over three days of disorder as the Army launched an internment operation – arrest and detention without trial.
Six months later, soldiers from one of the units involved, the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, were implicated in Bloody Sunday where 13 people were shot dead in Londonderry.
Mrs Justice Keegan’s comments opened the door for possible further prosecutions of British troops over Troubles shootings decades ago. She ruled out paramilitary involvement by any of the victims and described them as ‘entirely innocent of any wrongdoing on the day in question’. The coroner, sitting in Belfast, ‘expressed the hope that some peace may now be achievable now the findings of the inquest have been delivered’.
After the inquest, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill, of Sinn Fein, described the deaths as ‘British state murder’. Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the findings ‘cast a tremendous new light on one of the darkest pages of the history of the conflict’. He added: ‘It will come as an immense relief and vindication for the families who have maintained for decades that their loved ones were innocent and their killings unjustified.’
Padraig O Muirigh, a solicitor for many of the families, yesterday described a proposed amnesty for soldiers as a ‘disgraceful derogation of commitments’.
The coroner said IRA gunmen were in the Ballymurphy area at the time of the Army operation and soldiers were targeted by attacks including petrol bombs.
She accepted testimony that they were ‘frightened and under attack’, adding: ‘Many of them were young men at the time who told me that they were simply obeying orders.’
But she criticised a ‘disproportionate’ use of force in incidents which led to nine of the deaths.
General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, gave evidence to the inquest along with exSinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who lived in Ballymurphy at the time. A spokesman for the families, John Teggart, whose father Danny was killed, yesterday condemned plans for an amnesty.
He said: ‘No one should be above the law. We will not accept an amnesty for these murders.
‘Amnesties are for people who are afraid of the truth. If the British Government is so proud of their legal system, why do they not trust it? Every victim should have the right to pursue justice.’
He stressed: ‘I want to speak directly to the people of Britain at this moment. Can you imagine what would happen if the British soldiers murdered ten unarmed civilians on the streets of London, Liverpool or Birmingham?
‘What would you expect – an investigation? Would you expect justice? Or would you be happy for them to get an amnesty?’
A Government spokesman said it would now ‘take the time to review the report and carefully consider the conclusions’.
‘Frightened and under attack’