The two Scots Guards convicted of the murder of Peter McBride in Belfast in September 1992 will remain in the British army, the Ministry of Defence announced in London yesterday.
The Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said recently that Guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright should not remain in the army.
The Northern Ireland Office stressed that the decision was "entirely a matter for the army board" and that Dr Mowlam's personal view on the subject was well known.
It is understood that after a short period of retraining Fisher and Wright will resume full army duties. It is thought most unlikely that they will be posted to Northern Ireland.
Mark Wright's mother, Mrs Isabel Wright, said her son was very pleased with the decision.
The Ministry of Defence said the army board considered that Fisher and Wright had shown "contrition for their action, which they admitted was an error of judgment which they very much regret."
Fisher and Wright were convicted of murder in 1995 after they shot Peter McBride (then aged 17) as he ran away from a patrol in the New Lodge area of west Belfast. At their trial they said they believed he was carrying a coffee-jar bomb in a plastic bag.
Wright maintained that he reacted after hearing a gunshot which he thought had been fired by Mr McBride. The youth was in fact unarmed, and the prosecution insisted he had already been searched by the patrol before he was shot.
The army board also took into account: that the security situation in west Belfast at the time of the shooting was tense and that a member of the guardsmen's unit had recently been killed; that their behaviour had been exemplary while serving a long prison sentence; their previously unblemished army record; and their desire to remain in the army.
The Independent MP, Mr Martin Bell, who led a campaign for their release, said: "I'm delighted. Although I acknowledge it was a difficult decision, I always thought it was inconceivable that the army board should stand by these two during the years of their detention and then abandon them when they were free men. I know they both wanted to stay as soldiers and I am very pleased for them."
In a statement Col Tim Spicer, the guardsmen's commanding officer at the time of the murder, said he was delighted by the army board's decision. He would have expected nothing less considering the difficult situation faced by soldiers every day in Northern Ireland.