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Bloody Sunday paratroopers attack Saville report as 'fundamentally flawed'

Paratroopers from the battalion involved in Bloody Sunday have attacked the Saville inquiry as “fundamentally flawed” with “cherry-picked evidence”.

In an extraordinary fight back against the inquiry’s finding that the shooting of 14 unarmed civilians was “unjustifiable” the Paras accused Lord Saville of coming to “subjective and inaccurate conclusions”.

In a letter passed to The Daily Telegraph on behalf of 35 former members of 1st Bn The Parachute Regiment present on Bloody Sunday they wanted it to be known “that we have no desire that the report’s finding be now buried and forgotten”....

The Saville report said the men from Support Company, 1 Para, “lost their self-control” on Jan 30, 1972 and then “put forward false accounts to justify their firing” when they gave evidence.

But the report, that was released last Tuesday, “totally ignored” the evidence of soldiers who said they had come under fire, said the letter.

“Clear and consistent eye witness accounts were discounted and all these people branded as liars.

“Any purely objective assessment of all the evidence would conclude that the truth was difficult, if not impossible, to establish to the satisfaction of all.”...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)