British army blamed for Bloody Sunday killings
By DPA, IANSTuesday, June 15, 2010
LONDON - The Bloody Sunday shootings that left 13 civilians dead in Northern Ireland 38 years ago were the result of “unjustified and unjustifiable actions” by the British army, a report published Tuesday said.
Prime Minister David Cameron, presenting the Saville Inquiry to parliament, said the soldiers of the parachute regiment who fired on protesters in Londonderry Jan 30, 1972, had “lost their self-control”.
Amid a “widespread loss of discipline”, they fired the first shots without warning in what Cameron described as “shocking and tragic events”.
“The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces. And for that, on behalf of the government, indeed on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry,” Cameron said.
The Bloody Sunday shootings are widely seen as an event that shaped the decades of conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, during which a total of 3,700 people died.
The inquiry, led by former judge Mark Oliver Saville, was ordered by ex-prime minister Tony Blair in 1998.
The decade-long investigation, which took statements from hundreds of witnesses, is the longest-running and most expensive investigation of its kind in British history, costing 195 million pounds.
