Troops sold down river after Bloody Sunday, says former Para
ARMY veterans have been ‘stitched up and sold down the river’ after being investigated over their alleged involvement in Bloody Sunday 47 years ago, a comrade claimed last night.
Police began the criminal probe in the wake of the 12-year, £200million inquiry led by Lord Saville, which concluded in 2010 that soldiers from the Parachute Regiment had ‘lost control’ during a civil rights march, causing the ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’ deaths of 14 civilians.
Eighteen former paratroopers were under investigation, but one has died.
The elderly men fear being charged with murder this month in connection with the shootings in Londonderry in 1972,
‘Officers have allowed them to be stitched up’
and they could also be charged with attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and perjury.
One now in his late seventies, who served with 1 Para in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday but did not fire his rifle, says senior officers had let soldiers be sacrificed.
Insisting troops returned fire after they were shot at first, he added: ‘Those in the firing line facing potential prosecution are all soldiers. Where are the officers? Officers who encourage soldiers to step forward and give evidence have stood back and allowed them to be stitched up and sold down the river by the system which only cares about political correctness.’
He said veterans were being ‘relentlessly hunted’ by the ‘politically correct mob’, while terrorists behind the Birmingham pub bombings were not, even though their identities are known.
Lord Saville granted anonymity to every soldier who fired a shot on Bloody Sunday – January 30, 1972 – following a campaign led by the Daily Mail. But the ex-paratroopers fear they will be identified if charged. One veteran identified as Sergeant O faces two possible charges of attempted murder after firing into the air and hitting masonry that may have injured two civilians below.
He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘I am in my late seventies. I am in God’s waiting room. There is not a lot they can do to me.’
But he admitted: ‘It is a worry. It just niggles away.’
Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘The actions of the Army were not good, but to single out a group of OAPs after all this time is grossly unfair.’