‘No blanket amnesty’ for N.Ireland crimes: UK PM

Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated in a newspaper piece Monday that the UK government has abandoned ambitions to stop all prosecutions related to the Northern Ireland conflict, instead giving immunity to those who cooperate.

The government in July last year announced a plan to end prosecutions related to the conflict, which left 3,500 people dead over three decades, but it was condemned by all sides as an “amnesty”.

“We have listened to many people in recent months and reflected on what we heard,” Johnson wrote in Monday’s Belfast Telegraph, ahead of a visit to Northern Ireland to urge the formation of a power-sharing executive.

“Dealing with the past will still require difficult decisions but there will be no blanket amnesty,” he wrote.

“Immunity will only be available to those who cooperate and prosecutions could follow for those who do not.”

The proposals “to deal with the legacy of the past” will be put to parliament this week, Johnson wrote.

The Good Friday peace agreement was signed in 1998, ending the conflict, but tensions remain over the potential prosecution of British troops and paramilitaries alike.

Families of those slain by the military claim they have been denied justice by troops who are supposed to represent the state.