'Bloody Sunday, when British troops opened fire in Belfast:' Tony Blair

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair - a man partly credited with delivering peace in Northern Ireland and currently charged with peace-building in the Middle-East - writes in his new memoir that Bloody Sunday occurred in Belfast.

By The Newsroom

Published 7th Sep 2010, 11:42 BST

Updated 7th Sep 2010, 21:23 BST

The New Labour figurehead's new memoir "A Journey" describes the killings of January 1972 as having taken place in the Northern Ireland capital and not in Londonderry's Bogside.

This was in spite of Mr Blair having ordered the Saville Inquiry into the killings.

He also said he ordered the inquiry to placate nationalist and Irish opinion.

He wrote: "To assuage Nationalist opinion and under pressure from the Irish, I also ordered an inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shottings in 1972, when British troops had opened fire in Belfast, killing a number of people."

John Kelly, whose brother Michael Kelly, was shot dead on Bloody Sunday and who has fought for the past 38 years for justice said Mr Blair's laxity was unbelievable.

"I find this incredible," he said. "Tony Blair set up a 200m pound inquiry into what happened on Bloody Sunday and he doesn;t even know where the event took place? It's astonishing."