Bloody Sunday anonymity ruling

Soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre in Londonderry and who have since died will remain anonymous at a forthcoming inquiry into events on that day.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry said it was decided to extend the anonymity granted to living soldiers giving evidence to the inquiry, to those who had since died.

A total of 14 people were killed by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in Derry in 1972.

The inquiry is being headed up by Lord Saville and the main public hearings get under way in the city later this month.

In a ruling on Thursday, the inquiry team said the anonymity decision had been taken despite a threat assessment that the risk was low from terrorists to families of soldiers involved in Bloody Sunday who had since died.

"It seems to us that the families of those soldiers who have died are justified in feeling, notwithstanding the low threat assessment, that it would simply be unfair for their names now to be singled out from virtually all the other soldiers and published," it said in a statement.