An American ballistics expert, Mr Luke Haag, yesterday told the Lee Clegg murder retrial that marks on a bullet identified as fired by the paratrooper could only have been caused when it passed through the fibrous material in the back of the rear seat.
Ms Karen Reilly (18) died in 1990 when soldiers opened fire on a stolen car as it drove through an army patrol in Belfast. Ms Reilly was struck by two bullets, either of which would have proved fatal. It is the Crown case that Clegg fired into the back of the car after it had passed.
Mr Haag added that a "tab", part of the outer skin of the bullet, had been found in the seat back, and in his opinion this had come from the Clegg bullet.