Two former soldiers are to be prosecuted for murder in relation to the fatal shooting of an Official IRA man in Belfast in 1972.<\/p>\n
The defendants, known as Soldier A and Soldier C, are the surviving members of the Army patrol which shot Joe McCann.<\/p>\n
They are aged 65 and 67, and were in the Parachute Regiment.<\/p>\n
They are from England, but are expected to appear in court in Northern Ireland in the next few months.<\/p>\n
Joe McCann was a prominent member of the Official IRA. He was 25 when he was shot near his home in the Markets area of Belfast.<\/p>\n
The original police investigation was conducted in the early 1970s and no-one was prosecuted.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have reviewed the case after the Northern Ireland Attorney General, John Larkin, referred it to the Director of Public Prosecutions in March 2014.<\/p>\n
This followed a report in 2012 by a police team which investigated alleged crimes from the Troubles.<\/a><\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service said the decision to prosecute the men for murder was reached “following an objective and impartial application of the test for prosecution”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"