British soldier faces trial over Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday killings

The only British soldier charged with murder over the Bloody Sunday massacre has gone on trial in Northern Ireland , more than half a century after paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civil rights protesters, in what became a watershed moment of the Troubles – the three decades of sectarian conflict in the region.

Soldiers shot 26 civilians that day. Thirteen people were killed immediately, while another man died from his injuries four months later.

The former British paratrooper, known as Soldier F under a court anonymity order, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and attempting to murder five others when soldiers opened fire on unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry (also known as Londonderry) on January 30, 1972.

Prosecutors have previously ruled there