British soldier faces trial over Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday killings

"The first-ever trial of a former British soldier accused of murder during the 1972 massacre began in Belfast on Monday. The only British soldier charged with murder over the Bloody Sunday massacre has gone on trial in Northern Ireland, more than half a century after paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civil rights protesters, in what became a watershed moment of the Troubles the three decades of sectarian conflict in the region."

"The former British paratrooper, known as Soldier F under a court anonymity order, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and attempting to murder five others when soldiers opened fire on unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry (also known as Londonderry) on January 30, 1972. Prosecutors have previously ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge 16 other former British soldiers."

"For the families of those killed and wounded, the proceedings at Belfast's Crown Court mark the culmination of 53 years of campaigning for justice. On the day of the killings, about 15,000 people had joined a march in Derry city to protest systematic discrimination against Irish Catholics in housing, voting, and employment. As demonstrators moved through the city, soldiers from the British Parachute Regiment opened fire, gunning down people as they fled and others who stayed to help the wounded."

A former British paratrooper, anonymized as Soldier F, is on trial in Belfast accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and attempting to murder five others during Bloody Sunday on January 30, 1972. Paratroopers opened fire on unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry, shooting 26 civilians; thirteen were killed immediately and another died months later. Prosecutors declined to charge 16 other soldiers previously, while families campaigned for 53 years for accountability. The Widgery Tribunal largely cleared soldiers and authorities in 1972, findings rejected by victims' families as a whitewash. The massacre ignited decades of sectarian violence during the Troubles.

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