Former British Soldier to Stand Trial Over Bloody Sunday Killings Half a Century Ago

Flowers laid at the Bloody Sunday memorial, a monument to those killed on Bloody Sunday, in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, on Jan. 30, 2022, on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday shootings. Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images

LONDON—A former British soldier will stand trial in the killing of two civil rights protesters half a century ago on Bloody Sunday, one of the deadliest days of the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland, a judge said Thursday.

The former paratrooper is charged with murder in the killings of James Wray and William McKinney and with attempted murder involving five other people in Derry, also known as Londonderry, on Jan.30, 1972. That was when members of Britain’s Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in the city.