Jean McBride writes to Queen

The mother of a Belfast teenager shot dead by two soldiers today urged the Queen to explain why they have been allowed to remain in the Army.

Jean McBride has written an open letter to the Queen, colonel-in-chief of the Scots Guards, in a bid to have Mark Wright and James Fisher thrown out of the regiment.

The letter was published in a newspaper as the Queen was due to fly into the North as part of the UK-wide tour to mark her Golden Jubilee.

"I have nothing against the Queen. I don't want to put any marks on her visit, but it's a chance for me to let her know that these two soldiers are still in the Army serving under her command," said McBride.

She hoped Buckingham Palace would reply to her message.

"The Queen like myself is a mother and I would like to think that if she receives this letter that somebody somewhere along the line will give me a reply."

Scots Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher were sentenced to life in prison for killing 18-year-old Peter McBride in 1992, but later released and allowed to resume their military careers.

Meanwhile, Mark Durkan, leader of the SDLP, has written to Prime Minister Tony Blair in a bid to secure ``justice'' for the family of Peter McBride.

Backing the McBride family's ongoing fight, Mr Durkan, Deputy First Minister in the North’s power-sharing government, claimed the decision was outrageous.

"I have written to Tony Blair raising the injustice done to the McBrides," he said.

"It is astonishing that the British Army would want to have convicted murderers and liars in its ranks."

Peter McBride was shot in the back by Wright and Fisher as he ran away from an Army checkpoint close to his New Lodge home in a nationalist part of north Belfast.

In court the soldiers claimed the father of two had been carrying a coffee jar bomb.

But the judge found they had lied and convicted them of murder.

The pair were given early release from prison in September 1998 and two months later an Army Board decided they could continue in the services.

Two judicial review applications by the McBride family to have the decision reversed - the latest last month - have been dismissed.