Belfast coroner rules 1972 soldier killings unjustified

A coroner in Belfast ruled Thursday that two British soldiers overreacted and used unjustified force when they shot and killed five unarmed civilians in west Belfast on July 9, 1972.

The inquest at Belfast Coroners Court examined the deaths of 13-year-old Margaret Gargan, 14-year-old David McCafferty, 16-year-old John Dougal, 42-year-old Catholic priest Father Noel Fitzpatrick, and 38-year-old Patrick Butler, a father of six. Two other men were seriously wounded in the incident, which occurred in the Springhill and Westrock areas. The soldiers, identified only as Soldier A and Soldier E from the 1st Battalion Kings Regiment, fired from an elevated position at Corrys timber yard, about 100 meters from the victims.

Presiding coroner Justice Adrian Scoffield rejected the soldiers' accounts of facing a sustained, organized gun attack. Radio logs from the army brigade undermined those claims, he said, describing the soldiers' narratives as potentially a "cynical attempt to justify shootings which were unjustified." Scoffield noted the soldiers used binoculars and scopes, enabling them to identify their targets. He determined that Gargan was killed by an aimed shot from Soldier E...