The shooting of unarmed civilians in the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre was “unjustified,”a prosecutor told a Belfast court on Monday as the first-ever trial of a former British soldier accused of the killings opened.

The ex-paratrooper, identified only as Soldier F, has denied two charges of murder and five of attempted murder arising from the killings, one of the most significant events in the three-decade “Troubles” that plagued Northern Ireland.

“The prosecution case is that that shooting was unjustified,” barrister Louis Mably told Belfast Crown Court.

“The civilians … did not pose a threat to the soldiers and nor could the soldiers have believed that they did,” he said.

Soldier F is charged with murdering civilians, James Wray and William McKinney, and attempting to murder five othe

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