Amnesty International has called for an inquiry after former members of a secret army unit said soldiers killed unarmed civilians in the IRA heartland of west Belfast.
The Military Reaction Force (MRF) carried out drive-by shootings of nationalists manning barricades to keep out loyalists 40 years ago, although there was no independent evidence any were paramilitaries, a BBC Panorama documentary has claimed.
The elite soldiers believed military regulations prohibiting firing unless their lives were in immediate danger did not apply to them.
Amnesty Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan said: “Today’s revelations in Panorama underline our call for the UK Government to establish a new, over-arching mechanism to investigate human rights violations and abuses in Northern Ireland, whether carried out by paramilitary groups or the security forces.”
The former soldiers claimed the unit had saved many lives.
One told the programme: “We were not there to act like an army unit, we were there to act like a terror group. We were there in a position to go after IRA and kill them when we found them.”
More than 3,000 deaths are being investigated.
The most notorious unjustified army killings happened at Bloody Sunday in Londonderry in 1972, when soldiers opened fire on civil rights protesters.
Another ex-member said it was part of his mission to draw out the IRA and minimise its activities.
“If they needed shooting they’d be shot,” he said.
Among those they killed, in May 1972, was father of six Patrick McVeigh.
His daughter Patricia said: “We want the truth. We don’t want to stop until we get the truth.”