The British army’s decision to readmit two soldiers convicted for murder showed it was “all right to kill a Paddy”, a senior Sinn Féin figure furiously complained in 2000.
Eighteen-year-old Peter McBride was shot in the back by Scots guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher in 1992 after he ran away from an army patrol that had searched his home in north Belfast.
The two soldiers were convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, they served only three years before they were given early release under the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
Later, a British army board ruled they could return to military service, but this decision was overturned by a British court. A second board then ruled they could continue as soldiers, but this decision was kept secret for nearly two years.
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Once it became public, it provoked a public outcry. Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly complained furiously in a phone call with the Northern Ireland Office’s political director, Bill Jeffrey.
In a note of Mr Kelly’s remarks later, Mr Jeffrey quoted him as saying: “The decision was a disgrace and had been greeted with incredulity, even by people who had expected nothing of the British.
“The army dismissed large numbers of soldiers every year for smoking dope, but it was all right to kill a Paddy. We were dragging our heels over OTRs (on-the-runs), but murderers were taken back into the British army,” he said.
Denying involvement, Mr Jeffrey said the British army operated independently “in matters of this kind”. Replying, Mr Kelly said: “In that case, the prime minister should take the matter out of their hands.”
Mr Kelly remains a Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast.
In 1983, Mr Kelly – a convicted IRA bomber – was part of a mass breakout of prisoners from the Maze/Long Kesh prison outside Belfast, during which one prison officer died and another was shot.
He is a former hunger striker and was part of Sinn Féin’s negotiating team during the years leading up to the Belfast Agreement.
