NI police to investigate Bloody Sunday

After a report by Lord Saville blamed the British army for the killings 40 years ago, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) announced that it is preparing to open an investigation into the Bloody Sunday massacre, which has been expected to take at least four years and involve a team of 30 detectives.

On January 30, 1972, British soldiers from the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment shot 26 innocent civil rights protestors and bystanders in Londonderry, killing 13, including seven teenagers.

“I do not think anywhere else in the world is facing the challenges of organized crime, paramilitary activity … alongside having to deal with 30 years of misery in such a way,” Chief Constable Matt Baggott told the Policing Board in Belfast today on July 5.

According to the Saville Inquiry’s report, civil rights demonstrators shot dead by British soldiers were unarmed and no warning had been given to any civilians before the soldiers opened fire.

It also found that none of the casualties were posing a threat or doing anything that would justify soldiers’ shooting.

However, in 1998, the British Queen knighted General Mike Jackson the second-in-command of the regiment at the time of the Bloody Sunday massacre and he was also granted the Distinguished Service Order in 1999.

SSM/SS/HE

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