Ballymurphy Inquest

Sonic67

Give an amnesty. No different to how the terrorists are treated.

Rasczak

Spot on Dony and entirely agree about the commanders vice the Squaddies. I believe under certain circumstances the prison sentences are capped under the GFA to 2 years.

Dony

There should never be an amnesty on justice. Blair fudgeed up.

Sonic67

See the views of the UK, the defence secretaries, the thousands who rode to London.

Thousands of bikers protest in London over Bloody Sunday prosecution

You thought ground troops shouldn't be used and both are in a mess... Err well done for bad judgement.
Your vendetta against the army is legendary. It has been so long I once asked if they had raped your mom as I couldn't figure it.
Yep. Witch hunt.

Pacifico

Your link is factually incorrect.

All the ‘letters of comfort’ did was confirm that the PSNI (police) had no evidence against an individual that could lead to a prosecution at that time.  Prosecutions are still possible if evidence becomes available in the future.
​When the John Downey trial collapsed the Judge said that the  the assurances given in the letter had to stand even though there had been a “catastrophic failure” in the case. The judge said that despite the blunder it offended the "court's sense of justice and propriety" to now try the defendant.

So IRA terrorists are getting away with not being tried for their crimes whilst British soldiers are being hauled before the Courts. Anyone with a sense of fairness can see that is not acceptable.

Rasczak

I am not sure what you want me to 'see' from the article?  I have no issue with people protesting about this or any other matter they may feel strongly about.  As the article makes clear, the decision to prosecute is independent of Government.

My point at the time was that Afghanistan and Iraq had caused so much embarrassment to politicians - due to lack of body armour, adequate kit etc - that it would be very unlikely that politicians would deploy the Army on large scale combat operations for a very long time.  Now I fully accept that the politicians, along with the Army and the MOD, bear significant responsibility for that - but it doesn't alter the current situation.

The key point I was making then - and it applies now to this situation - is that sometimes it pays dividends to see the bigger picture. In this instance, I am not convinced that trying to protect individuals from murder or manslaughter charges, provided they are well founded, is in the national interest.  If we were to do so, it could actually undermine our security interests and would put our citizens and security services at more risk.

Sonic67

It shows the public has no appetite for chasing after pensioners.
Which just shows we should adequately fund our armed forces.

We have a government that wants to do defence on the cheap and pensioners being prosecuted.

But you actually resented troops getting life saving equipment. Even without deployment you still need new equipment.

Sonic67

Note body armour etc is being replaced again. See Project Payne and lessons learned.

Rasczak

The decision to prosecute was not made by the Government.

I don't resent anything. I regret the MOD didn't make appropriate arrangements before the Afghan deployment. I regret some in the Army exploited the situation for short term funding advantages. I regret the operational impact it has had on the use of the Army in the medium to long term.

Sonic67

No. But the government can do everything from giving legal aid to giving an amnesty.
Troops are deployed by the government not the soldiers. Once deployed by the government the government needs to fund it.