Last week British imperialism in Ireland reared its ugly head once again. This time in the form of a ‘not guilty’ verdict for the British soldier known by the pseudonym “Soldier F”, who escaped any notion of ‘justice’ in a corrupt British judicial system.
The ‘not guilty’ decision was in relation to the charge of two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. It came in spite of testimony ‘Soldier F’ gave to the Saville Inquiry, in which he admitted to shooting four of the victims on Bloody Sunday -Michael Kelly, Barney McGuigan, Patrick Doherty and William McKinney. The shootings cannot be justified in any way and even the British state in the Saville report conceded that “[t]he firing by soldiers of 1 PARA [was on people] … none of whom was posing a threat”.
When asked whether Bloody Sunday was “the only circumstances in which [he] admit[ted] to killing people” he responded “[t]hat is correct”. This evidence cannot be used in court, but the fact that the prosecution were unable to get a conviction on a man so clearly guilty of the crimes he is on trial for (and more) is disgraceful and raises serious questions as to whether or not the CPS and the British State even tried to put forward a credible case against ‘Soldier F’.
Amongst the summary of the judgement lies a section which will be particularly painful to read for anyone with a conscience. In this section, ‘Soldier F’ is described as having a ‘good character’ by the judge, and also that due to having “no criminal convictions” he was supposedly “less likely to have committed an offence, particularly one of this gravity”. This same man was accused of being “appallingly brutal” to detainees, amounting to torture in Fort George.
These detainees were also held under the false pretence of being rioters. One of the detainees who suffered under the hand of ‘Soldier F’ and his buddy ‘Soldier G’, was Professor Terry O’Keefe (who was also at the time a Catholic Priest). O’Keefe asserts that this “idle brutality” was done by these maniacs for “no apparent reason” other than “just to pass the time”. Apparently this is the sort of person that the British State holds as a “good character”.
The trial of was a sham from beginning to end. A fifty-three year wait for all those affected is inexcusable in isolation, never mind the sheer dismissal of the trauma faced by the families of those murdered by the British State which was made apparent with the ‘not guilty’ verdict. It was conducted in front of a single judge, with no jury present. The families of the victims were not allowed to see the accused or know his name (though this is of course an open secret).
The verdict will be used in future as justification to absolve any other British terrorists of responsibility and punishment for their crimes in Ireland and further afield. These cowards should be rotting in prison, instead they are enjoying the benefits reaped from an imperialist machine which destroys all in its path to monopolisation.
However we must reiterate here that this verdict came as no surprise to Socialist Republicans and the victims and families suffering as a legacy of British terror in Ireland. We are all well aware of the fact that there is not and never can be BRITISH JUSTICE IN IRELAND.
