How sickening our soldiers are persecuted as young Lyra’s IRA killers still walk free

NEaRLY a month ago, a 29year- old journalist called Lyra McKee was shot dead in Londonderry by terrorists belonging to a hard-line republican group called the new IRa.

although northern Irish police have made several arrests, no one has yet been charged with the murder of this innocent young woman on a British street.

Meanwhile, politicians in northern Ireland continue to show far more interest in the deaths of people 40 or 50 years ago during the Troubles than in Lyra McKee’s recent tragic demise.

Sinn Fein, which was the political wing of the IRa during the Troubles, is anxious that members of the security forces should be brought to justice for those who died at their hands during incidents such as Bloody Sunday in 1972.

The truth is, of course, that the IRa was guilty of infinitely greater atrocities. During the Troubles, the terrorist organisation committed some 1,700 murders, almost half the total death toll.

This is the background to the government’s announcement that former British soldiers will be given much stronger legal protection against prosecution for alleged crimes. Except, that is, in northern Ireland.

Penny Mordaunt, the new Defence Secretary, says troops who served in Iraq and afghanistan won’t be investigated over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light.

This is welcome. It comes after former soldiers have been persecuted by the authorities. Most egregiously, a unit called the Iraq Historic allegations Team investigated opportunistic allegations of murder, torture and wrongdoing by British troops.

Over seven years, 3,688 claims were made, costing the taxpayer £60million. not one resulted in prosecution. The plug was pulled in 2016 after the collapse of the ambulance- chasing law firm Public Interest Lawyers, and the disgrace of its leading solicitor, Phil Shiner.

Why shouldn’t soldiers who served in northern Ireland (there are thought to be a quarter of a million of them still alive) enjoy the same statute of limitation being offered to colleagues who fought in Iraq and afghanistan?

It’s a good question. and, indeed, Penny Mordaunt, declared yesterday that she would like to see the amnesty extended to veterans who spent time in northern Ireland. She is going to have her work cut out.

THE

reason is the Historical Investigations Unit, which is expected to spend five years (let’s call that ten) at a cost of £ 150million ( let’s double that) as it examines 1,700 unsolved murders in the province from 1969.

attentive readers will note that the Historical Investigations Unit sounds very like the ill-fated Iraq Historic allegations Team. I won’t be surprised if it turns out to be a similar waste of time and money.

What it means, so far as army veterans are concerned, is that any time of the day or night they could hear a knock on the door from the boys in blue in relation to an allegation dating back several decades.

It’s true that ex-terrorists who murdered people in cold blood might also receive a knock on the door. But here’s the rub. The Ministry of Defence will be required to hand over an enormous amount of paperwork to the unit.

However, the IRa, as well as loyalist terrorists responsible for hundreds of murders, didn’t keep any record of their foul activities. and how many people will be prepared to testify against former killers?

The likelihood is that more soldiers than ex-terrorists will find themselves under forensic examination — which is of course exactly what Sinn Fein wants. The British army will be in the dock.

This is utterly wrong. as Lord Dannatt, Chief of the general Staff from 2006 to 2009, rightly argued yesterday morning on Radio 4’s Today Programme, there is no moral equivalence between brutal terrorists and soldiers upholding the law.

This is what he said: ‘Soldiers did their duty. got up in the morning, went on patrol and sometimes came under attack and they returned fire. They didn’t set out to murder people. Terrorists set out every morning to murder people, and successfully did so.’

Doubtless there were instances when soldiers were guilty of excessive force or gratuitous violence, but they were few and far between, and in marked contrast to the cruel and barbaric behaviour of

all terrorists. How is it that our politicians have contrived to put veterans and former terrorists in the same dock, as though they are on the same moral footing, and should be judged in the same light?

In fact, former terrorists have often received preferential treatment. Following the 1998 good Friday agreement, Tony Blair covertly authorised ‘letters of comfort’ to more than 200 suspected terrorists guaranteeing them that they would not face prosecution.

Such an assurance led in 2013 to the collapse of the trial of John Downey, a suspect in the 1982 IRa bombing in Hyde Park, which killed four soldiers.

Patrick Magee, who in 1984 planted a bomb in the grand Hotel in Brighton which killed five people and injured many more, was released from prison after only 14 years in 1999 under the terms of the good Friday agreement.

YET

the authorities are still pursuing former soldiers for alleged crimes, sometimes repeatedly interviewing suspects who have been previously cleared after thorough investigations.

The latest case concerns an unnamed former British paratrooper who has been charged with the deaths of two civil rights protesters in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday.

Maybe his prosecution is justified in light of the facts. We will see. But his case still seems shocking compared to the indulgence extended towards hundreds of coldblooded terrorists.

Why won’t the government spare veterans who served in northern Ireland the anxiety of prosecution so many years after the event? The answer has to do with low politics rather than high principle.

Mrs May and Karen Bradley, the rather clueless northern Ireland Secretary, are favouring Sinn Fein in order to tempt them back into the suspended devolved government in the province, while the DUP are indulged despite not supporting the Prime Minister over Brexit.

Sinn Fein, of course, hopes to blacken the British through the Historical Investigations Unit. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — Theresa May’s parliamentary allies in Westminster — want to besmirch the IRa in the same process.

In short, an amnesty for veterans in northern Ireland has been rejected by Mrs May and Mrs Bradley because Sinn Fein and the DUP want to perpetuate their differences through what Penny Mordaunt yesterday described as the ‘ lawfare [ as opposed to warfare] issue’.

The Historical Investigations Unit should be killed off. It threatens to be an exorbitantly expensive exercise which will damage veterans more than former terrorists, who are the true villains.

It also envisages a maximum sentence of two years for those found guilty, which would be regarded as inadequate by those who are driven by the politics of grievance.

The amnesty should be extended to veterans who served in northern Ireland. and if the cost is to include erstwhile terrorists, we can console ourselves with the thought that most of them have already been let off scot-free.

It’s time to move on, time to stop fighting yesterday’s battles, and to concentrate on today’s — such as the appalling, but neglected, murder of Lyra McKee.