Petition und Campaign „Justice in the case of Peter McBride“
to people in Germany
At 10am on September 4 1992 my only son Peter left our home in North Belfast to visit his sister. He never came back. Just after he left our home he was stopped on the street by a British army patrol. They stopped him, searched him, and minutes later shot him in the back. He was only 18, the father of two young daughters. I lost my only son, and my grandchildren lost their father.
The two soldiers who shot him were arrested and charged, something that doesn’t happen very often over here. I sat through their trial and listened to them lie about my son, about how they claimed they thought he was armed, how they claimed they thought he was trying to lead them into a trap. I watched them laughing at me from the dock, as if they had done nothing wrong.
When the judge sentenced them to life in prison, a campaign was started in the British media by the military calling for their early release. The campaign was based in the Headquarters of their regiment.
On the sixth anniversary of Peter’s death his two killers were released from prison. Then the British army decided that the two could go back into the army, as if nothing had happened. Soldiers are dismissed from the British Army for taking drugs. They can be dismissed if they are homosexual. They are not dismissed if they are convicted of the murder of an 18 year old Irish man.
Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher are now based with their Regiment in Germany, in Munster. I would like to ask people in Germany how they feel about two convicted murderers being allowed into their country, armed and dangerous? How would any German mother feel if these two had murdered her only son? I want to ask people in Germany to show their own government, and the British government, that these two aren’t welcome there, that there is no place for convicted murderers who are not only allowed, but required, to carry guns.
If two US soldiers were convicted of a racist murder in Alabama, but pardoned by the Governor, would they be welcome to serve as soldiers on German soil? All I want is justice for my son. His killers have been released, and I accept that, as many other people in Ireland have had to. But what I cannot and will not accept is that they remain in the British Army as if my only son’s life meant nothing. I have the full support of the Irish Government, members of the US Congress, of the European Parliament and of many decent people in Britain. I appeal to the German people. Let your government know that convicted murderers should not be serving soldiers on German soil.
Jean Mc Bride