The mother of a Belfast teenager shot dead by the British army has said she is "shocked and disgusted" at reports that the two soldiers convicted of his murder could join a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
Mr Peter McBride (18) was shot dead in the New Lodge area of north Belfast seven years ago. Two members of the Scots Guards, Mark Wright and James Fisher, were jailed for life for his murder in 1995, but were freed last year. In November, the British Army Board decided they could resume their careers.
The Sunday Mail yesterday reported that the two soldiers had been transferred to the Irish Guards and deployed in Germany as part of a planned peacekeeping mission to go to Kosovo.
Mrs Jean McBride said: "I'm disgusted and shocked to hear this. That country has enough problems without convicted murderers running around armed. When Peter was shot I was told it was because tensions were running high on the streets of Belfast. If those two could not keep their heads in Northern Ireland, how on earth will they keep them in Kosovo?"
Mrs McBride recently launched a legal battle to have the two men thrown out of the British army.
She said she would be consulting her solicitor again to establish if there is any further action she can take if they were sent to Kosovo. "One of the few things that gave my mind some ease was that I believed at least they would never be involved in duties similar to those in Belfast. This would prove me wrong. If my solicitor thinks there is any action I can take, I will take it."
A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defence denied that any decision had been taken on which units could go to Kosovo. "We do not reveal the movements of individual soldiers," he said.