Tape of Shoot-to-Kill Order Aired as ‘Bloody Sunday’ Probe Opens

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The crux of Northern Ireland’s inquiry into the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” killings came under scrutiny when it was reported that a soldier was ordered to shoot dead an unarmed man just two days earlier.

The new inquiry, which began in Londonderry on Monday, is probing the shooting of 14 Roman Catholics by British troops during a civil rights march.

Paratroopers maintain that they opened fire after they were shot at following rioting. Witnesses and victims’ relatives say soldiers fired without provocation at unarmed civilians.

Under army code, soldiers are permitted to shoot to kill only when they are under fire or fear for their lives--and they are not to shoot to kill people who are unarmed.

Britain’s Channel 4 television broadcast a recording of a British army officer telling a soldier to shoot dead a man believed to have thrown a nail bomb at a patrol in Londonderry several minutes earlier, despite the fact that the man was unarmed.

“I can see the nail bomber, but he doesn’t appear to have anything in his hands,” the soldier told his superior, who responded, “Shoot him dead.” The soldier missed.

The recording, made by a radio enthusiast who monitored army frequencies in the run-up to and during “Bloody Sunday,” was rejected from the original 1972 “Widgery inquiry,” which exonerated the soldiers, but it is now among thousands of pieces of documentary evidence being studied.

The new inquiry began in 1998 but was postponed until this year while the paratroopers lobbied for and secured their anonymity. Lawyers used the delay to interview witnesses and gather more evidence.