Several British newspapers have hailed plans for an amnesty for all crimes linked to the Troubles.
The Daily Mail and the Daily Express carried the story on their front pages today.
Daily Mail described the amnesty as "justice for our troops".
A sub-headline read: "Soldiers will not be prosecuted over historic 'crimes' in Ulster... but there's a price: IRA terrorists are off the hook".
The newspaper said the move was a "victory for the Daily Mail", which had campaigned for a statute of limitations.
The move will affect around 200 British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the newspaper reported.
The Daily Express's headline read: "Witch-hunts of hounded veterans to end".
The newspaper said the amnesty was "not ideal" but was the "least worst" option.
Daily Mail columnist Stephen Glover said the amnesty was the "lesser of two evils" but admitted he was "torn" over Mr Lewis's statement yesterday.
He wrote that there was "no conceivable comparison" between ex-soldiers and former paramilitaries.
"Soldiers were undeniably occasionally responsible for unlawful homicide – the official inquiry into ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1972 showed as much – but they did not set out to kill and maim innocent people," he wrote.
"Terrorists did – on a massive scale.
"So it is impossible to welcome Mr Lewis’s statement.
"But if it is the only way to spare former soldiers vexatious prosecutions, I am reluctantly prepared the accept the Government’s proposals as the lesser of two evils."
