A FORMER paratrooper being investigated for his part in Bloody Sunday has said he still believes it was a “job well done”.
The soldier also told a BBC Radio 4 documentary he refused to answer any questions when recently interviewed by PSNI detectives.
The documentary is to be broadcast on Tuesday night.
The soldier was arrested by PSNI officers as part of the investigation into the 1972 killings.
Thirteen people died after soldiers opened fire in Derry on January 30, 1972.
A 14th person died later from their injuries.
The former paratrooper was questioned at a police station in England.
“I served my country and I’ve served that, I think, well for 22 years,” the former soldier told the programme presenter, journalist Peter Taylor.
“Now I’m being told I’m a murderer.”
Peter Taylor put it to the soldier that when he interviewed him in 1992 about Bloody Sunday, he said it was a “job well done”, and asked: “You still believe that?”
The soldier replied: “I still believe that. They were not all innocent.”
He also insisted the three people he fired on that day were all armed, despite the findings of the Saville Inquiry.
Asked about the prospect of being prosecuted and sent to jail, the former soldier said: “Stick me in a jail, for what end?
“To what end would that help the situation in Northern Ireland?” he asked.
Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney said the soldier’s comments had caused renewed hurt to the families of victims.
“These comments are offensive and extremely hurtful to the families of those who died on Bloody Sunday,” the Foyle MLA said.
“They also fly in the face of the findings from the Saville Inquiry which clearly demonstrated how the victims had been murdered by the British Army.
“This was not a job well done. It was a massacre of innocents.”
The Public Prosecution Service is currently considering a file from the PSNI and is expected to decide if former soldiers will be prosecuted for the killings on Bloody Sunday.
A decision on prosecution is due in the New Year.
Fr Edward Daly waves a white handkerchief as an injured man is carried away on Bloody Sunday
“We forgive them all for what they’ve done. I’ve no bitterness against them,” she said.
But she would like to see the former soldiers stripped of the medals they received.
“They got them for a job well done and a job well done isn’t exactly what happened, because they [the victims] were all innocent,” her daughter Regina McGloughlin told the programme.
The programme also considers calls for a statute of limitations on prosecutions for former members of the security forces.
Former chief of the defence staff Lord Richards said he believes an amnesty would draw a line under the Troubles, but it would have to apply to former paramilitaries.
“My instinct is that it probably would have to be applied to both sides,” he said.
“How much longer are these people on both sides you know, getting into their middle if not old age now – how much longer have they got to put up with this?
Drawing A Line Under the Troubles will be broadcast this evening, Tuesday, December 11, at 8 pm on BBC Radio Four.
