UK: Hillsborough documents to be made public

Published Oct. 17, 2011 11:26 a.m. ET

foxsports

The British government says official documents on the Hillsborough tragedy in which 96 soccer fans died at an FA Cup semifinal more than 20 years ago will be made public.

Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman, Steve Field, said Monday that it had given all government papers related to the 1989 disaster to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which is looking again at the incident. The panel will release them to families of the dead and make them publicly available.

An inquest jury ruled in 1991 that the deaths at Sheffield Wednesday's stadium were accidental, but South Yorkshire Police were strongly criticized for their actions. Officers herded around 2,000 Liverpool fans into caged-in enclosures that were already full, resulting in many being crushed and suffocating.