A former British paratrooper, known only as Soldier F, has been cleared of all charges related to the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in an Irish court. The verdict followed an investigation and legal review initiated after a 2010 inquiry reopened the case. Judge Patrick Lynch stated that the prosecution’s evidence was insufficient, and the case was further complicated by the age of the testimony and the loss of many documents.
The ruling was met with disappointment by Irish politician Padraig Delargy, who called it one of the most extreme examples of ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ in the country’s history. The case stems from Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march in Londonderry on January 30, 1972, killing 14 people and wounding several others. The incident occurred during the Troubles, a long-running sectarian conflict between Irish nationalists and loyalists, involving British forces, that left around 3,600 people dead before the Good Friday Agreement ended hostilities in 1998.
The initial investigation in 1972 largely cleared the army of wrongdoing, drawing fierce criticism from victims’ families. A second probe in 1998, completed 12 years later, concluded that all those killed had been unarmed and that the soldiers had opened fire without warning. These findings led to a murder investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which ultimately resulted in Soldier F being charged.