AONTÚ’S PEADAR TÓIBÍN has used parliamentary privilege to identify a former British Army soldier who faced murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday.
Soldier F faced charges of murdering James Wray and William McKinney on Bloody Sunday in Derry on 30 January 1972, when troops opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside, killing 13 people.
Last year, it was announced that the prosecution of Soldier F would not proceed amid due to concerns about the admissibility of evidence.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP named Soldier F in the House of Commons last July and Tóibín has done so in the Dáil today.
The Journal is not naming Soldier F for legal reasons.
A number of families of Bloody Sunday victims are legally challenging decisions by the Public Prosecution Service not to prosecute veterans for murder over Bloody Sunday.
Tóibin was speaking during Leaders’ Questions today and asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin about a report published yesterday which investigated collusive behaviours between loyalist paramilitaries and security forces during The Troubles.
Tóibín made specific reference to the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity on the Ormeau Road in February 1992 in which five people were killed.
“Two men wearing boiler suits and balaclavas pumped 44 bullets into the victims. The names of the five Catholic men and boys were Christy Doherty 52, Jack Duffin 66, James Kennedy 15, Peter Magee 18 and William McManus 50,” he said.
Tóibin said that “we know the names” of victims of The Troubles but that “we don’t know the names of the people who perpetrated those murders”.
At this point, Tóibín named Soldier F and said that most people wouldn’t know “the alphabet of British Army perpetrators of murder”.
“We need to make sure that people know their names,” he said.
In response, Taoiseach Michéal Martin has said that the Irish government does not agree with “the amnesty” for Troubles killings being proposed by the British government.
“Proposals were made, they cannot be accepted. We’ve opposed them. We made it very clear to the British government that there can be an amnesty for nobody. State forces and government’s have a higher moral higher order in terms of how it conducts itself,” he said.
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