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Judge to deliver verdict on Soldier F case next week

A solider is on trial on charges linked to events on Bloody Sunday 1972 (Credit: William L Rukeyser)
A solider is on trial on charges linked to events on Bloody Sunday 1972 (Credit: William L Rukeyser)

Judgment has been reserved in the case of a former British soldier accused of two counts of murder on Bloody Sunday in 1972.

Judge Patrick Lynch said he hoped to deliver his verdict next Thursday 23 October at 10am.

Soldier F was accused of the murders of Jim Wray and William McKinney.

He also faced five counts of attempted murder.

Earlier today the trial judge dismissed a defence application that the case should be dismissed because the evidence could not be relied on.

The defence and prosecution then made their closing submissions.

The court was told Soldier F would not be giving evidence in his own defence.

Defence barrister Mark Mulholland KC said the central plank of the prosecution case was the statements of two other soldiers G and H.

Mr Mulholland said by their own admission they were "liars and fabricators" whose testimony should be treated with the "utmost caution".

They had given differing accounts over several statements he told the court and were "suspected perjurers".

He also claimed that eight civilian witnesses had spoken of a single soldier opening fire in Glenfada Park North, rather than a number of soldiers acting in concert to open fire on unarmed civilians as the prosecution suggested.

Closing the prosecution case, Louis Mably KC said the shooting in Glenfada Park North had been carried out without justification and with the intention to kill.

"That's the ingredients of murder," he said.

Mr Mably said there was "an aspect of cover-up" in both how the soldiers' statements were taken and the content of them.

He claimed having opened fire on unarmed civilians, the soldiers had concocted the stories to justify their firing.

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