Liam Holden went to prison for 17 years on the basis of a confession he made after being tortured by British soldiers in 1972. Now the government is making it harder for people like him to get justice
Shortly after 2pm on 17 September 1972, a bright Sunday afternoon, six soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment were patrolling near the Ballymurphy estate in west Belfast. If you were a British soldier stationed in Northern Ireland at that time, the area around Ballymurphy was not a place to stand still for too long. Even when pausing briefly in a doorway, the young soldiers would sway from side to side, performing a life-or-death street ballet.
There were three soldiers on either side of the road. The last man on the left-hand side was an 18-year-old private, Frank Bell. When the patrol reached an exposed and potentially dangerous spot by a side street, the section commander, a corporal, quickly crossed before pausing to watch his men follow one at a time. As private Bell crossed the road, the soldiers heard the crack and fizz of an incoming high-velocity round.
