Nationalist political and community leaders have expressed outrage at the decision to allow two Scots Guardsmen, jailed for the murder of a Catholic teenager in Belfast, to remain in the British army, writes Suzanne Breen.
The family of Mr Peter McBride is seeking a meeting with the British Defence Secretary. The Ministry of Defence yesterday said James Fisher and Mark Wright could keep their jobs after an army board re-examined their case.
They spent six years in jail for shooting Mr McBride (19) in the back as he fled from an army checkpoint in 1992. They later claimed they thought he had been carrying a bomb.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, said the latest decision was "entirely a matter for the army board".
The initial decision to allow them to remain in the army was quashed by Mr Justice Kerr, who said the decision was an error of judgment that wholly contradicted the findings of the trial judge, who had concluded that the guardsmen fired on Mr McBride, "knowing that they had no justification for doing so".
The independent assessor for military complaints in the North, Mr Jim McDonald, condemned the decision. The Pat Finucane Centre in Derry said it would take legal action against "this disgraceful, insulting decision".