David Holden is the first ex-soldier convicted of a Troubles-era killing since a 1998 peace deal.
An ex-soldier has been given a suspended sentence for killing an unarmed man at an Army checkpoint in Northern Ireland 35 years ago.
The victim of the 1988 shooting was 23-year-old Aidan McAnespie.
He was killed by a bullet which ricocheted off the road and hit him in the back at a County Tyrone checkpoint.
Holden was sentenced to three years in prison but the judge suspended the term for three years.
Mr McAnespie was walking through checkpoint in the village of Aughnacloy on his way to attend a Gaelic football match when the fatal shot was fired.
Holden was found guilty of his manslaughter in November last year.
Image source, Alan Lewis-Photopress Belfast
During the trial, the defendant had claimed the shooting was an accident and that he did not intend to fire his weapon.
Holden claimed his hands were wet at the time and his finger slipped on the trigger of his machine gun, discharging three shots
However, the judge said that the accused had given a “deliberately false account” of the incident which he found “entirely unconvincing”.
Convicting him, he said he considered the defendant “criminally culpable” of gross negligence manslaughter, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Holden, who is now in his early 50s, was 18 years old at the time of the shooting on 21 February, 1988.
He was a member of the Grenadier Guards and was carrying out his first day of checkpoint duties.
The manslaughter trial heard that Holden did not realise the machine gun was cocked.
The trial was also told that Mr McAnespie known to security forces as a “person of interest” as he was suspected of being a member of the IRA.
He was not armed or posing any threat when he was shot by Holden.
The judge said it was clear from victim impact statements that Mr McAnespie’s death had changed the lives of his family.
He said he recognised that the pain and loss they had suffered would continue, no matter what sentence was given to Holden.
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