A number of leading human rights bodies, including Amnesty International, have written an open letter to the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, urging him to set aside the findings of the Widgery inquiry into Bloody Sunday, reports Gerry Moriarty in Belfast.
they have called on Mr Major to hold a new inquiry into the events of January 30th, 1972, when 13 civilians were killed by the British army in Derry. A 14th man later died from his injuries.
Organisations such as Amnesty, the US-based Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, and others have joined the Northern Ireland-based Committee on the Administration of Justice to argue that the Widgery inquiry was fundamentally flawed.
They contend that the "nature of the terms of reference of the inquiry, the close involvement of the British government of the day at crucial stages of its work, the failure to investigate all the evidence available and in some cases to disregard very crucial evidence, means that a new inquiry which is wide-ranging and impartial is urgently required."