The British government spent more than \u00a34 million (\u20ac4.5m) defending a former army veteran acquitted of murder in relation to the events of Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n
Soldier F was found not guilty of two counts of murder and five of attempted murder in Derry on 30 January 1972.<\/p>\n
His trial concluded earlier this month.<\/p>\n
A judge ruled that the statements of two fellow soldiers introduced as a key plank of evidence by the prosecution could not be relied on.<\/p>\n
The costs emerged in a parliamentary answer to a question asked at Westminster by Foyle MP Colum Eastwood.<\/p>\n
Mr Eastwood described the expenditure as “sick”.<\/p>\n
Armed Forces Minister Alistair Carns confirmed that \u00a34.3m had been spent – much of it in legal fees linked to the case.<\/p>\n
They date back to 2019 and include money spent on an associated judicial review of an earlier decision to drop the criminal charges against Soldier F.<\/p>\n
Mr Carns said the costs could rise “marginally” once the final legal bill was received.<\/p>\n
Other money was spent on flights, accommodation, and pastoral support for the former paratrooper.<\/p>\n
Mr Eastwood said the findings of the Saville Inquiry were clear on what Soldier F had been responsible for on 30 January 1972.<\/p>\n
“Soldier F came to Derry as part of a regiment that shot and killed innocent civil rights protestors as they ran for their lives.<\/p>\n
“He is a self-confessed killer and yet for more than 50 years, he has been a protected species in the eyes of the British government.”<\/p>\n
13 civil rights protesters were shot dead in Derry on Bloody Sunday. A 14th died later of his injuries.<\/p>\n
At least 15 others were injured by the gunfire. The Saville Inquiry found that the soldiers had lost control when they opened fire on unarmed civilians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British government spent more than \u00a34 million (\u20ac4.5m) defending a former army veteran acquitted of murder in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-111530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}