A 41-YEAR-old man shot dead by the British army in Derry in 1971 was not carrying a rifle, as alleged by the soldier who killed him, and posed no threat, the Historical Enquiries Team has found.
William McGreanery was shot by a member of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards while crossing a junction in Derry in the early hours of September 15th, 1971.
He was shot by one of two soldiers on duty inside a defensive sangar (fortified position) at the former Essex factory in Derry at around 12.45am. Hours earlier a British soldier, Sgt Martin Carroll, was shot dead by the IRA at the same location.
The Pat Finucane Centre in Derry yesterday released details of the inquiry by the team, which investigates unsolved killings from the past. The team also found that the killing was not properly investigated as British military police interviewed the soldiers in isolation from the RUC.
The inquiry team, a unit of the PSNI, interviewed the two men who were soldiers in the sangar.
The soldier who fired the single shot, Soldier A, said Mr McGreanery was aiming a rifle at the sangar. All of the civilian witnesses said Mr McGreanery was not armed. Soldier A told the inquiry he was “petrified” at the time.
The inquiry team said two of the most contentious issues in the case revolved around whether Mr McGreanery was armed and whether he posed a threat to the soldiers. “On the one hand Soldier A is adamant that he genuinely thought a rifle was being aimed in his direction and was therefore fully justified in shooting at the ‘gunman’,” the inquiry reported.
“There is an abundance of evidence from the civilian witnesses to say that Mr McGreanery was not armed and therefore posed no threat whatsoever to the soldiers.
“Soldier A is prepared to concede, on the basis of what the civilian witnesses say, that he was mistaken about the rifle.”
The team also examined how, despite an RUC recommendation at the time that Soldier A be charged with murder, no charges were made against him.
As a result of advice given by the then attorney general in the Stormont administration, Ulster Unionist Sir Basil Kelly, the chief crown solicitor said because the soldier was acting in the course of his duty he could not be prosecuted for murder. It was also decided he could not be charged with manslaughter.
Billy McGreanery and Marjorie Roddy, nephew and niece of Mr McGreanery, said that although their uncle had not got justice, they welcomed the fact that his name had been cleared and the findings that he was not armed and “was an innocent man”.