Former British Army General Frank Kitson dies at age of 97

One of the most notorious British Army officers of the Troubles has died.

General Frank Kitson has died at the age of 97. 

He led British military operations in the north at the beginning of the Troubles, and went on to become a hate figure for nationalists and republicans.

General Kitson oversaw operations of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, which opened fire on civil rights marchers in Derry in on Bloody Sunday, where 13 people were shot dead in January 1972.

The same battalion was involved six months earlier when 10 people were killed in west Belfast in the wake of an Army operation in Ballymurphy. 

In his obituary in The Times, which reported that he died on January 2, it read that "no general in recent times has provoked more intense and sustained controversy".

He established the Military Reaction Force (MRF), an undercover Army unit.

Tony Doherty, Chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust, said there will be no sadness at the passing of Frank Kitson in Derry. Ballymurphy or in any other community where he "plied his evil trade, leaving a trail of devastation behind".

Mr Doherty, whose father was killed on Bloody Sunday, said: "Kitson, in his blind pursuit of defending the crown’s interests, made no distinction between civilian and combatant as he honed his skills in applying torture, internment and death from Kenya, to Aden and then to Ireland.

"Here in the north, he invested heavily in the Parachute Regiment as the crack troops of the empire and, in doing so, was responsible for the Ballymurphy Massacre and Bloody Sunday and the torture of innocent people in RUC and British army barracks. Indeed, after Bloody Sunday and the murder of 14 innocent men and boys, he berated Colonel Derek Wilford for not going far enough into the Bogside, presumably to murder more.

"Kitson received a CBE in the Queen’s honours list in February 1972, after wreaking havoc in Belfast in 1971. It is a disgrace that this award still stands even after the innocence of the Ballymurphy dead has been clearly established.

"Kitson was a willing tool of the British empire and has gone to his death a decorated ‘hero’ of the empire. His legacy is a terrible one. We are still living with it. He has blood on his hands from the innocents of three continents and will be remembered as a state terrorist who acted with total impunity.

"There will be no sadness at his passing in these parts."