LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland, June 15 (UPI) -- British soldiers involved in "Bloody Sunday" in Northern Ireland 38 years ago could be prosecuted, officials said Tuesday as a report was released.
In his report, Mark Oliver Saville, a justice on the Supreme Court of Britain, said the killings of 14 people at a Londonderry civil rights march in 1972 were "unjustified and unjustifiable," The Guardian reported. The prosecution service of Northern Ireland said it is studying the report to determine whether criminal charges can be brought.
Soldiers opened fire on the marchers, killing 14.
Prime Minister David Cameron issued the first official government apology. In the House of Commons, he said Saville's 12-year-investigation showed soldiers should not have been sent into the Catholic Bogside neighborhood on Jan. 30, 1972, that the soldiers fired without provocation, that the victims were not armed and that those involved in the massacre gave false statements.
The killings helped spark decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
"This city has been vindicated, this city has been telling the truth all along," said Denis Bradley, a former priest who was one of the marchers on Bloody Sunday and helped negotiate a cease-fire 22 years later.
