'Bloody Sunday' probe hears last witness

Saturday, February 14, 2004

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland -- A mammoth investigation into the "Bloody Sunday" British army massacre of protesters 32 years ago heard testimony Friday from its 919th and final witness, the city's former IRA commander. But the English, Australian and Canadian judges overseeing the Bloody Sunday Inquiry face at least another year of sifting through mountains of evidence before publishing their conclusions about the Jan. 30, 1972, killings in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Paratroopers that day stormed through barricades erected by the Irish Republican Army and shot to death 13 Catholics who had been protesting against Britain's detention of IRA suspects without trial. The killings fueled a generation of Catholic bitterness toward the British.

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