Johnson apologizes for deaths of 10 people during 1971 military operations in Northern Ireland

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday issued an apology for the deaths of 10 civilians in 1971 during a military operation in Belfast.

“The prime minister apologized unreservedly on behalf of the U.K. government for the events that took place in Ballymurphy and the huge anguish that the lengthy pursuit of truth has caused the families of those killed,” Johnson’s office said, The Associated Press reports.

This comes one day after a judge in Northern Ireland, High Court Justice Siobhan Keegan, ruled that British soldiers were responsible for nine of the 10 deaths and the victims were “entirely innocent of wrongdoing on the day in question.”

Among those who were killed were a Catholic priest, a World War II veteran and a mother of eight.

The families of the victims have long maintained their innocence and celebrated the ruling on Tuesday.

One-day inquests that were returned in 1972 originally came back as “open verdicts” and suggested they victims could have been responsible for their own deaths.

The inquest, ordered by Keegan in 2011, was not a criminal trial but a fact-finding inquest, and as such no one has been charged in the killings, Reuters notes.

A spokesperson told the outlet that Johnson plans to “deliver a way forward in Northern Ireland that focuses on reconciliation, delivers for victims of the Troubles and ends the cycle of reinvestigations.”