Appeal judges in the Paratrooper Lee Clegg murder case are due to announce today whether they will order a retrial or admit new evidence about the shooting of Ms Karen Reilly seven years ago. Today's decision in the Appeal Court in Belfast follows two days of intense legal argument relating to new ballistics evidence about the bullet which killed Ms Reilly (18).
She was in a stolen car which was hit by gunfire 19 times after it went through a roadblock mounted by the Parachute Regiment in west Belfast in 1990. The driver, Martin Peake (17), was also killed.
Clegg (29) was convicted of murdering Ms Reilly in 1993 and sentenced to life imprisonment. But he was freed on licence two years later even though the North's Appeal Court and the House of Lords had rejected his appeals.
The case was referred back to the Appeal Court by a former Northern secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, after he received a dossier of ballistics evidence which Clegg's new lawyers claimed would clear his name.
The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, said he and Lord Justices MacDermott and Nicholson would consider the submissions overnight and hoped when they sat again today to have decided "where we proceed and in what manner".
The second day of the appeal was marked by another protest by members of Saoirse, the republican prisoners freedom group.
Four demonstrators climbed on to the roof of the Waterfront Hall beside the court and displayed a Tricolour and a banner calling for the release of "Prisoners of War". After about two hours they came down and were arrested. A police spokesman said later they had been charged with causing criminal damage, provocative conduct and causing a breach of the peace. They were released on bail to appear in court on December 16th.