Potential suspect identified in Kingsmill massacre

A potential suspect has been identified in the murder of 10 Protestant workmen in Northern Ireland - 40 years after the attack.

The long-unsolved investigation into the 1976 killing of the textile factory workers, outside the County Armagh village of Kingsmill, comes only a week after a new inquest into the incident began.

The significant development came after a forensic re-examination of a palm print left on a getaway vehicle.

Nobody has been charged with the murders, but the IRA was widely blamed for what was one of the most notorious during the Troubles.

The getaway vehicle used by the killers was left abandoned across the Irish border and the palm print was discovered later.

It was re-examined by forensic scientists last week and a potential match on the police's database was made.

Relatives of the victims were informed about the development ahead of the scheduled sitting of the inquest on Tuesday.

Coroner Brian Sherrard described it as a "massive development" in the case.

• How did the Kingsmill massacre unfold?

The factory workers were ambushed as they travelled along the Whitecross to Bessbrook road in rural south Armagh on January 5 1976, in an attack seen as reprisal for loyalist killings in the same area.

The men's minibus was stopped by a man waving a red light and those on board were asked their religion by a camouflaged gunman with an English accent, whom the victims thought was a soldier.

The only Catholic workman was ordered to run away.

The killers, who had been hidden in the hedges, ordered the rest to line up outside the van and then opened fire.