Paratrooper Lee Clegg was acting within the law when he fired the shot that killed a teenage girl in west Belfast in 1990, his lawyer told the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal yesterday.
Mr Anthony Scrivener QC was opening Clegg's third appeal against his conviction for murdering Ms Karen Reilly (18) when soldiers fired 19 bullets into a stolen car. The driver, Mr Martin Peake, was also killed.
Mr Scrivener said the fatal shot was fired through the side of the car and not into the back of it. "It was a legal shot because at that time the car was a danger to other members of the patrol," he said. "And that shot into the side of the car was one of three which the original trial judge held to be legitimate."
Mr Scrivener's submissions were based on the results of ballistics tests, which persuaded the former Northern Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to refer the case back to the appeal court after the same court and the House of Lords turned down earlier appeals.
But Mr Reginald Weir QC, prosecuting, said this "whole new theory is so inherently improbable it just does not stack up with the other evidence".
Clegg was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 but was released after only two years and is now back with the Parachute Regiment as a PT instructor.
He was not present yesterday but his parents were in court. So, too, were the parents of Karen Reilly.
The opening day of the hearing was briefly disrupted by members of Saoirse, the republican prisoners' release group, displaying posters and chanting: "Clegg out, all out. Release the political prisoners."
The appeal is being heard by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, and Lord Justices MacDermott and Nicholson. A week has been set aside for the hearing but the absence of one of the judges next Thursday, and Mr Scrivener and certain witnesses next week, could prolong the appeal.