Veteran guilty of NI killing
A FORMER soldier has been found guilty of manslaughter at a checkpoint in Northern Ireland 34 years ago.
David Holden was on his first day of checkpoint duties in 1988 when his machine gun discharged. The bullet ricocheted and killed IRA suspect Aidan McAnespie, 23.
Holden, now 53, said he fired the weapon by accident. But after a trial without jury at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice O’Hara accused the exGuardsman of giving a “false account”.
Holden, who was 18 at the time, is the first veteran to be convicted of a historical offence in Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Paul Young, of the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement, said: “This whole debacle is a sham.”
Sentencing was adjourned until 2023.