Soldier F trial set to resume with witness evidence next week

By Rebecca Black, PA

The trial of a former paratrooper accused of the murder of two men on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972 is set to resume next week.

The non-jury trial at Belfast Crown Court will hear evidence from three men who survived the shootings as well as civilian witnesses and former soldiers.

It comes after Judge Patrick Lynch on Wednesday ruled that key hearsay evidence in the trial can be admitted as evidence in his trial.

He granted an application by the prosecution to admit a number of statements made by other soldiers on the ground during the shootings on January 30th 1972 which the defence had argued were not reliable.

Members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday after a civil rights march.

Soldier F, who cannot be identified, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney.

He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident in the city’s Bogside area, namely of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell and a person unknown.

He has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.

He sits in the courtroom behind a curtain during each day of the trial.

The court sat for a brief hearing on Friday, and heard that the trial will resume next Wednesday morning, and is expected to last between two to three weeks.

There was some discussion around witnesses being subjected to cross-examination, with Mark Mulholland KC for the defence arguing that they were “quite exhaustively questioned at the lower court”.

“After the various years of media, Saville (inquiry) sittings, being at the hearings, what has occurred even in the last few years of these proceedings, there is a risk of innocent contamination,” he said.

Judge Lynch said he thinks cross-examination should take “more or less its normal form”.

“It’s an open forum, an open trial, and also it’s of assistance to the court as well – to see witnesses describing events is different to reading about it on page after page of deposition,” he said.

The trial will sit again next Wednesday.