A British army veteran is facing prosecution for the attempted murder of an IRA gunman more than five decades after the terrorist was shot.
The veteran, known as Soldier B, faces trial over the shooting of Eugene Devlin in West Belfast in May 1972, The Telegraph reported.
The prosecution comes in the midst of calls for Sir Keir Starmer to stop the “show trials” of veterans following a former paratrooper being cleared of murdering civilians on Bloody Sunday.
Known as Soldier F, the former paratrooper is now in his 70s.
He was cleared of murdering two unarmed protesters and attempting to kill five others.
However, Soldier B faces going through the court system despite the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) telling him in 1997 that he would not be prosecuted.
That was reversed last year when Northern Ireland prosecutors brought charges of attempted murder against him.
Soldier B is now aged 78 and denies shooting Mr Devlin.
Eugene Devlin was shot in West Belfast in May 1972
|
Senior veterans and military leaders have slammed prosecuting former soldiers so long after the alleged offences.
Some have claimed prosecutors were “dragging” old men who had previously been cleared back into the courts “without new evidence”.
Former Chief of the General Staff General Lord Dannatt wrote in The Telegraph that pursuing such cases was akin to “two-tier justice”.
He further said that IRA members were “being pardoned and released from prison” while British soldiers were waiting “anxiously for a knock on the door”.
Eugene Devlin was killed in December the same year he was allegedly shot by Soldier B
|
Lord Dannatt added that the cases flew “in the face of good legal practice, and suggests that political pressure is more powerful than the pursuit of justice”.
Soldier B was patrolling the Andersonstown area of west Belfast in a civilian car as part of a Military Reaction Force (MRF) unit when it reported spotting a man armed with a rifle on the evening of May 12 1972.
They reported that he was near one of the street barricades erected at the height of the Troubles.
The gunman is alleged to have fired at least one shot.
Mr Devlin was then shot and wounded.
The car Soldier B was in along with two other undercover soldiers returned to base.
The second MRF car went to nearby Finaghy Road where Catholic civilian, 44-year-old Patrick McVeigh, was shot and killed.
That was allegedly by another member of the undercover unit who is facing a murder trial.
Mr Devlin was a father of one and was later shot and killed in a separate incident in December that same year.
It took place during an attempted sniper attack on a British Army patrol in Strabane.
Mr Devlin was buried in Strabane Cemetery in County Tyrone with an IRA honour guard.
He is listed in the IRA’s Roll of Honour.