Bloody Sunday amnesty call from former Northern Ireland Secretary
FORMER British soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday killings should be given immunity from prosecution, says a former Labour Northern Ireland Secretary.
Peter Hain was responding to a row about suspected Irish Republican terrorists being sent letters assuring them they weren’t wanted.
He yesterday called for troops to get the same treatment over the 1972 Lon- donderry shootings in which 14 civilians died when troops opened fire at a civil-rights march. Up to 20 paratroopers, now in their 50s and 60s, could face charges of murder, attempted murder or criminal injury. But Mr Hain called for equal treatment of soldiers to sustain peace.
He said: “If the job of politicians is to say, ‘We need to look to the future’, and you have addressed the question of former terrorists, then it should apply even-handedly to members of the British security forces as well.” He was backed by former Tory Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
There was fury last week when it emerged 187 Irish Republicans, including many fugitives, were sent the letters as part of a secret deal between Sinn Fein and Tony Blair’s Labour government.
Mr Hain came under fire for his role in the deal, which came out as the trial of John Downey – for the 1982 Hyde Park bombing – collapsed.
He had received one of the letters.