BELFAST: A former British soldier has been given a suspended sentence for the manslaughter of a Catholic man shot dead in Northern Ireland in 1988, the first veteran to be convicted of an offence related to the region’s “Troubles” since a 1998 peace deal.
The three-year suspended jail sentence was delivered as the British government seeks to push ahead with legislation to introduce an amnesty to former soldiers and individuals involved in decades of sectarian violence that killed around 3,600 people.
David Holden, who was 18 at the time, admitted to firing the shot but said his finger slipped on the trigger when Aidan McAnespie, 23, passed a border security checkpoint in county Tyrone on his way to a Gaelic football match.
Holden was found guilty of manslaughter in November after the judge found he gave a “deliberately false account” of events.