Thursday January 29 11:44 AM EST Britain To Announce New Bloody Sunday Probe By Giles Elgood BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Britain was set to announce on Thursday a fresh inquiry into the "Bloody Sunday" killings in Londonderry in 1972, when paratroopers killed 14 civil rights marchers. Prime Minister Tony Blair was expected to make an announcement -- which comes at a delicate moment in multi-party Northern Ireland peace talks -- in the House of Commons in London later in the day. While the peace talks have struggled, Northern Ireland has been rocked by a growing spiral of sectarian violence that has claimed 10 lives since Christmas. Blair was not expected at this stage to issue an apology for the killings -- one of the most contentious incidents in nearly 30 years of strife in Northern Ireland -- because that could prejudice the inquiry. The judicial inquiry was expected to be chaired by a senior British judge, with two other judges, possibly from the Commonwealth and the United States, according to British media reports. Relatives of the dead have long been pressing for a new inquiry into the killings, whose 26th anniversary falls on Friday. They say the original 1972 inquiry, chaired by Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice of England, was a whitewash that exonerated the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment who opened fire on marchers in Londonderry's Catholic Bogside area. Soldiers said they were fired on first. The killings fueled the flames of Irish nationalist hatred for Britain in Northern Ireland and produced an upsurge in new recruits for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla force. The prospect of a new inquiry was welcomed by Catholic nationalists but greeted with little enthusiasm by Protestant, pro-British unionists. Unionists saw the move as a concession to the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, intended to keep the party in the peace talks. John Hume, leader of the moderate Catholic nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, said relatives of the dead wanted only to establish the truth of what had happened on Bloody Sunday and he did not see how anyone could object to this. "I have been informed by the government that a statement will be made in the House of Commons today," he told BBC radio. "I think what is important is that the full truth be established and that is what the families want. That is something that is absolutely and totally reasonable," said Hume, one of the architects of the faltering Anglo-Irish peace process. Unionists said that if there were to be an inquiry into Bloody Sunday, there should also be investigations into killings by the IRA that have contributed to a death toll of more than 3,200 since the conflict in Northern Ireland began. Gregory Campbell, a Democratic Unionist Party councilor from Londonderry, said that in any case an inquiry was now unlikely to discover what really happened. "Twenty six years later, the reality is that no one will ever know the whole truth," he said. Relatives of the dead welcomed the news, which they heard through the media, but were angered because they said Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam had broken a promise to keep them personally informed. They said they wanted an independent inquiry, the repudiation of the Widgery report and that those responsible for the killings should be brought to justice. "Our three demands still stand," said Margaret Wray, whose brother died on January 30, 1972. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's cycle of violence continued. Three men were recovering in hospital on Thursday after a night of paramilitary-style gun attacks and punishment beatings. ^REUTERS
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