Bloody Sunday families express anger at PPS decision over soldiers who lied.
Bloody Sunday families and supporters in Belfast
Brett Campbell
Today at 07:20
The Bloody Sunday families have expressed anger after the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said it would uphold a decision not to prosecute eight former soldiers who were investigated for perjury about the events of Bloody Sunday.
The individuals were investigated for giving false evidence about the events of January 30, 1972 when 13 innocent civilians were murdered and 15 others left injured.
Ciaran Shiels, solicitor for the Bloody Sunday Families and Wounded, said the move will allow ex-Parachute Regiment soldiers who “perverted the course of justice” to escape criminal prosecution.
“Former members of the British military have nothing to fear in relation being held accountable either for murders they committed with impunity in Ireland, or when they subsequently came to lie under oath when seeking to justify the unjustifiable, or when alleging that the innocent victims they murdered were engaged in criminal activity and that they effectively deserved to be shot,” he said in a statement.
Soldiers opened fire during the civil rights march in the Bogside area of the city.
An inquiry, known as the Widgery Tribunal, issued a report within weeks of the atrocity which exonerated the British Army and compounded the hurt felt by victims.
It wasn’t until 2010, following a lengthy campaign for justice amid claims of a cover-up, that all those shot dead were declared innocent.
The findings of the Saville Inquiry overturned the main findings of the Widgery report and outlined a damning account of how soldiers were unjustified in firing more than 100 rifle rounds at protesters who did not pose a threat.
“Despite the contrary evidence given by soldiers, we have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers,” Lord Saville concluded.
The distinguished judge rejected claims that no-one threw, or threatened to throw, nail or petrol bombs at soldiers.
In April 2024, the PPS decided not to prosecute a number of people in relation to allegations of false evidence given to the inquiry.
A PPS spokesperson said: “The review of this legally complex matter is now complete. After a careful analysis of all available evidence and the legal submissions made by the family legal representatives, it has been concluded that the evidential threshold to proceed with a prosecution has not been met.”
They added: “We would further emphasise that today’s decisions in no way diminish the findings by the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
“A public inquiry and a criminal trial are very different processes and much of the material upon which the Inquiry could rely would not be available to the prosecution having regard to the rules of evidence that apply to criminal proceedings.”
Foyle MP Colum Eastwood expressed “deep disappointment that once again Bloody Sunday families have been let down by the state”.
The former SDLP leader referred to the trial of Soldier F in Belfast which concluded in Belfast last October with the ex-Paratrooper found not guilty of murdering James Wray (22) and William McKinney (26) and cleared of five charges of attempted murder.
At the end of the case, Mr Justice Lynch found that a number of soldiers had been “serially untruthful” about key events on Bloody Sunday and therefore had “committed perjury” before the Widgery and Saville Inquiries.
“It’s impossible to overstate the scale of the burden that has been placed on the families of the dead and injured on Bloody Sunday,” Mr Eastwood said.
“For more than fifty years, they have had to fight every conceivable institution of the state for truth, justice and accountability. Today, again, they have been badly let down by the incredible decision not to prosecute soldiers for perjury during the Widgery and Saville Inquiries.”
The elected representative described the PPS decision as “incredible” in light of the £4.3m taxpayer bill for the defence costs of Soldier F.
“It is not unreasonable to expect that there would be some consequence for those actions,” Mr Eastwood said.
“As I always have, and as the people of Derry always have, we will fully support the Bloody Sunday families in the days and weeks ahead.
“These families are leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice and we’re with them every step of the way.”
The civil rights law that has allowed lawsuits against local and state police doesn’t apply to federal agents.
A photo shows a woman in the driver’s seat of a car looking shocked as a federal agent smashes the passenger side window.
A number of other federal agents stand by and watch. Some houses are visible in the back of the photo.
Federal agents break a car window to remove a woman from her vehicle in Minneapolis on Jan. 13, 2026.
By Cary Aspinwall
Additional reporting contributed by Jesse Bogan
Republish
In 1871, bands of masked men were riding through southern states, terrorizing Black people with murders, beatings and rapes. Local officials did little to stop the violence because many of them supported, or in some cases were members of, the Ku Klux Klan.In response, Congress passed a law, often referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, meant to protect people from civil rights violations by state and local officials. The law has become a key piece of police accountability, granting Americans the ability to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court against state and local officers. But one important group remains exempt — federal agents.Following the recent slayings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers in Minnesota, along with other violence against civilians, some experts are questioning why that same 155-year-old law doesn’t apply to employees of the federal government.Scenes of brutal arrests and violent encounters with federal agents have become commonplace in U.S. cities where the Department of Homeland Security has launched immigration crackdowns in recent months, especially in Minneapolis-St. Paul.Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the Veterans Administration, was fatally shot in Minneapolis by Border Patrol agents on Saturday after he tried to protect a woman an officer had shoved to the ground.When federal agents use excessive force, infringe on people’s civil rights or fail to offer medical aid, experts say it’s especially difficult to hold them accountable in federal court.“There’s basically no right to sue federal officers for almost anything, including constitutional violations and including use of deadly force,” explained Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA who is an expert on police misconduct lawsuits.When local or state police use excessive force, victims or their families often file federal civil rights lawsuits. Cleveland paid Tamir Rice’s family $6 million; Baltimore agreed to $6.4 million for the family of Freddie Gray; and Minneapolis awarded George Floyd’s family a $27 million settlement.Schwartz said it is “a cruel irony” that Congress originally passed the civil rights law in response to masked men committing abuses allowed by state and local officials following the Civil War.“And here we are, 150 years later, and we are seeing federal officers blatantly violate the Constitution and laws,” she said. “And states are beginning to recognize that they need to step in to protect the citizenry — their residents — from violence and overreach by federal officers.”In a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, two legal scholars argued that the loophole for federal officers should be closed and the new law should be named in Good’s honor. Jonathan Ross, the officer who killed Good, could possibly face state criminal charges, but legal experts say the prosecution would face a number of challenges.Lawmakers’ refusal to close this loophole in the 1871 act for federal officers is a bipartisan policy failure that has persisted for decades, said Alex Reinert, a professor at New York City’s Cardozo School of Law who is an expert in civil rights and constitutional law.
“The Supreme Court has made it hard and Congress has done nothing about it,” he said. “The other piece of it is: Every presidential administration, every Department of Justice of every presidential administration for the last 45 years, has argued vigorously for a limitation of the right to sue federal officials. So, whether it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, they are all responsible for the space in which we find ourselves today — even as the current administration must be held accountable for flouting constitutional bounds in unprecedented ways.”Reinert said the killings of Pretti and Good have brought national attention to this issue, and that “has the potential to generate momentum for change,” but that effort may face significant resistance from the administration and Congress.Illinois passed a law last year that would allow people to sue federal officers in state court for violations of their civil rights while conducting immigration enforcement. The Trump administration quickly sued to nullify it.Ken Wallentine is the retired chief of the West Jordan, Utah, Police Department and the former chief of law enforcement for the state attorney general, and has served as a consultant on civil and criminal use-of-force investigations. He has concerns about what he’s seen unfolding lately in Minnesota.“I have a lot of questions about the tactics and use of force,” Wallentine said.If these deadly and violent encounters involved Minneapolis or St. Paul police instead of ICE and Border Patrol agents, he said, there would likely be some level of accountability happening, at least on the city, county or state level. There would be an investigation by internal affairs or the local prosecutor, or possibly an inquiry by another elected official or public body. For instance, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin received more than 22 years in prison for the 2020 killing of George Floyd.To be sure, not all incidents involving excessive force claims against local police end in criminal convictions or lawsuit victories. But in Wallentine’s previous roles, he had to answer to a mayor or an attorney general who could fire him. And state and local police have to obtain and maintain licensure through a state board that can revoke it. That same system doesn’t exist for federal officers, he said.“There are so many accountability tools that don’t apply to federal agents,” he said.In fact, several Trump administration officials have told ICE officers that they have “absolute” immunity.In the wake of Floyd’s death, dozens of states passed laws aimed at reducing use of deadly force by police and creating a duty for officers to intervene in cases of excessive or illegal force or misconduct. This month, Colorado officials launched a system for reporting complaints of misconduct by federal agents.“Nobody is above the rule of law, including federal agents such as ICE or border patrol,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.
Minnesota’s attorney general has a form for reporting violations of civil rights by federal officers. The state also has a specific law requiring someone who fires a gun and knows or suspects they have injured someone to immediately render aid. Some experts have argued that the agents present at Good’s death could be prosecuted under that law, because they reportedly never rendered aid and prevented a physician from doing so. After agents shot Pretti, they didn’t perform CPR and initially refused to allow a doctor to examine him before relenting, according to the doctor’s account in court records.In the case of Good’s death, Wallentine noted, “you’ve got the head of the agency jumping up and down and thumping her chest and saying this was a bad person,” leading him to believe any internal investigation may not be fair or impartial.Similarly, within hours of Pretti’s death on Saturday, Trump administration officials labeled him a “domestic terrorist” and someone trying to “massacre law enforcement.”Wallentine said he was a vocal advocate for a Utah law passed in 2022 that set minimum standards for an officer’s duty to intervene and report misconduct. He’s authored articles for police publications examining lawsuits in which courts held officers liable for not intervening when witnessing excessive force.“We require of our state and local officers a high standard of conduct, and we have a number of means to ensure that that standard of conduct gets met,” Walletine said. “And we ought to, as a society, expect the same out of anyone that we give a badge and a gun and the right to infringe on constitutional liberties. We ought to have the same standards of accountability [for federal law enforcement] — and we don’t.”Federal officers have used violent tactics during a number of incidents in Minneapolis-St. Paul: A family with six young children had tear gas thrown at their vehicle when they were trapped in protest traffic. The mother had to perform CPR on her infant, and the other children were treated at a hospital for smoke exposure, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. Agents mistakenly arrested a U.S. citizen at gunpoint in his own home, hauling him out in his underwear. Protesters have been sprayed in the face at close range with chemical irritants.On the morning of Jan. 11, Orbin Mauricio Henríquez-Serrano reportedly was on his way to work when he stopped to fuel up at a gas station in St. Paul.As Henríquez-Serrano sat in his car at the gas pump, Border Patrol agents in military-style fatigues and tactical gear swarmed his vehicle and ordered him out. In bystander video of the incident, Henríquez-Serrano appears to be on his phone when federal officers surprise him. Within seconds, they smashed the window and forcibly removed the 27-year-old from a Jeep, flipping him face down on the ground, cuffing his hands while at least one agent knelt on his back. He was soon limp and unconscious before agents took him away in a minivan.Some who watched the footage of Henríquez-Serrano’s arrest initially feared he might have died. He survived, and records show he was held at an ICE detention facility in El Paso the following week. HuffPost reported on Monday that he was deported.Homeland Security officials didn’t respond to questions about the incident. The agency addressed criticism of the arrest in a public post on X: “The subject refused to obey lawfully given orders and during that time a crowd formed. After multiple warnings and several minutes, Border Patrol broke the vehicles [sic] window and arrested the illegal alien.”His sister, Consuelo Henríquez-Serrano, told The Marshall Project in a phone interview that her brother did not have legal immigration status but planned to seek asylum, fearing gangs and corruption in his native Honduras. She spoke to her brother briefly on the phone from the detention camp, but was unsure about the extent of his injuries.“He’s not a criminal, he didn’t harass anybody, he didn’t have guns — they just took him,” she said.
A clear majority of the public believes the Taoiseach should not visit the White House for St. Patrick’s Day, after the Greenland and Venezuela crises.
Craig Hughes
Jan 27, 2026
An exclusive poll by Amárach Research carried out for Extra.ie has found that almost half of the public, 47%, believe Micheál Martin should not travel to the Oval Office.
The poll, conducted between January 21 and 26, found 35% believe he should attend, while 18% said they “don’t know”.
Those surveyed were asked to take into account Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela, where he abducted leader Nicolás Maduro, and Greenland, which he threatened to annex before backing down.
In the Dáil last week, Mr Martin defended the visit, saying: “We have always had a very strong relationship with the US, irrespective of who the president happens to be, or who is in power on the Hill at any given time.”
Extra.ie also revealed at the weekend that Mr Trump plans to attend the Irish Open at his Doonbeg Golf Course in September.
The polling comes as Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee will bring a memo to Cabinet today outlining this year’s St Patrick’s Day program of ministerial visits.
It also comes as a row has broken out between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over comments made by Tánaiste Simon Harris last week, when he said there wasn’t “any scenario” in which Ireland would join Mr Trump’s controversial Board of Peace.
Mr Martin had previously left open the possibility that Ireland may join the organisation, but had expressed some reservations about the proposal. By comparison, Mr Harris firmly closed the door on any suggestion that we would join the nascent organization.
His comments were called “embarrassing” by one Fianna Fáil minister, who said his remarks left him looking “insecure”.
“I think everyone is happy Micheál Martin is the adult in the room, and not Simon, who can’t help himself,’ they added. ‘When Helen was walking a tight line, [Mr Harris] was pouring fuel on it. Most EU capitals were taking a more nuanced line [on the Board of Peace]”.
They said the Department of Foreign Affairs usually took a “considered position” at the diplomatic level in relation to such sensitive proposals.
“He was undermining Helen as much as anyone. It was a push for publicity rather than navigating diplomacy,” they added.
It comes after a chaotic few weeks from the Oval Office, in which Mr Trump launched a military operation in Venezuela, captured the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and brought them to the US to stand trial for drug offenses.
Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump backed down on threats to impose tariffs and military force as leverage to seize Greenland. Inhabitants of the Danish territory feared a military offensive from Mr Trump in a bid to capture the island.
Meanwhile, mass protests have erupted in Minnesota after Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday. It came just weeks after Renee Good was shot in the same city by ICE agents.
The Trump administration has defended both incidents, although the president appeared to be trying to quell the outcry in Minneapolis yesterday, deploying his border tsar to oversee operations and taking a more positive tone with Governor Tim Walz.
Our poll found that men are more in favour of Mr Martin travelling to the Oval Office compared to women, with 44% of men and just 26% of women supportive of it. Women are also more uncertain: 22% don’t know, compared to 13% of men.
There is greater support among older people for the Taoiseach travelling. Under-35s are sceptical and unsure, with 9% believing he should travel, 45% against, and 27% saying they don’t know.
The poll found 42% of men do not want the Taoiseach to travel compared to 52% of women. Support is strongest in Dublin and Munster, with 38% backing the move.
Leinster, excluding Dublin, is the most opposed area, with a majority of 51% saying no and just 32% in favour. Connacht/Ulster stands out for its high level of uncertainty, with nearly a quarter (24%) saying they don’t know, alongside the lowest yes figure at 30%.
Labor and People Before Profit have said Mr Martin should not take up the offer of visiting, in response to Mr Trump’s actions. However, Mr Martin is all but certain to take the invitation.
In the Dáil last week, he said: “We have always had a very strong relationship with the US… That has underpinned a very significant economic relationship that puts bread on the tables of Irish workers. That is the reality.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime yesterday, Fine Gael TD Barry Ward said it is problematic that meetings at the Oval Office have turned into press conferences, and that the Taoiseach’s team should work to get more private time with Mr Trump.
His visit to the White House may be made more difficult after comments by Mr Harris last week appeared to gazump Mr Martin on whether Ireland would join Mr Trump’s Board of Peace.
Speaking from Brussels, Mr Martin had said there were “concerns” about the proposal from Mr Trump, but added that Ireland was “anxious” to contribute to “peace and conflict resolution in the Middle East and Gaza”.
However, Fine Gael leader Mr Harris firmly closed down any prospect of Ireland joining the board. He said at Government Buildings: “A board President Putin has been invited to – I mean, there’s a complete oxymoron, Putin and peace, first thing. Secondly, paying a billion dollars? We won’t be doing that. And thirdly, the idea that you’d end up setting up some form of structure, I think, essentially, competes with the UN or something – it is very hard to understand.”
Minister McEntee had to later clarify that the Government was speaking with one voice on the matter.
Sinn Féin Councilor in Rhode Island to provide update on Bloody Sunday Trust Campaign
Sinn Féin Councilor Aisling Hutton visited Rhode Island on Friday to provide an update on the Bloody Sunday Trust Campaign.
After the event, she said, “It was an honour to attend the Rhode Island Céilí Club to commemorate Bloody Sunday and to give an update on the ongoing efforts for truth, justice and accountability.
“Sincere thanks to the 1916 Committee for their incredible hospitality and welcome. It was deeply appreciated and speaks volumes about the strength of community and commitment that exists here.
“Irish America has played, and continues to play, a vital role in supporting Ireland and our efforts to unite our Island. From solidarity shown decades ago to the support given today, that bond remains strong and meaningful.
“The backing, understanding and encouragement from Irish America has mattered . It mattered then, it matters now, and it will continue to matter as we carry this work forward.
“I was very honoured to visit the memorial garden in Rhode Island in memory of The Famine, The Hunger Strike and The Easter Rising. A moment of remembrance honouring our dead and the strength of the Irish Disapora.
“Go raibh míle maith agaibh to everyone who attended, listened, and stood in solidarity.”
