[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

That important evidence to the Savile inquiry should be in the process of
being heard in the midst of all this Stakeknife business may be significant.

------

Soldier admits gunfire untruths

Bloody Sunday Inquiry: Claims made at original hearing were false

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday May 15, 2003
The Guardian

A paratrooper who fired 12 shots on Bloody Sunday admitted yesterday that
statements he made about gunfire and bombs being aimed at soldiers were
untrue.

Soldier S, who was an 18-year-old private at the time and subsequently
joined the SAS, told the Bloody Sunday inquiry he had no recollection of
what caused him to fire 12 shots in four bursts of three at 30-second
intervals.

The former paratrooper had told the Widgery inquiry - set up shortly after
Bloody Sunday and widely regarded as a whitewash - that he came under fire
as soon as he dismounted from his vehicle. The Widgery tribunal, which
generally adopted a sympathetic approach to the paratroopers, concluded that
his shooting was "unjustifiably dangerous for people round about".

Asked yesterday whether his statement to the military police on the night of
Bloody Sunday that he saw a gunman open fire at paratroopers with about six
shots from a ground-floor window of the Rossville flats in Derry could be
relied upon, Soldier S hesitated before replying: "No".

He said claims in his original statement that people were throwing nail and
acid bombs at the troops from the top of the Rossville flats were
inaccurate. "I did not see nail bombs," he said. "A hail of bottles" would
be "more truthful".

Soldier S added that he did not want to speculate about when he first heard
the sound of gunfire.

The former paratrooper apologised to the Saville inquiry counsel,
Christopher Clarke QC, about "a lot of inaccuracies" which appeared in the
original military police statements. They were not a "deliberate lie", he
said. Being questioned by military police late at night was a "frightening
affair" for an 18 year-old paratrooper. He added: "I am an honest person".

He said the inaccuracies were possibly the result of the military police
"collating evidence from what several soldiers said".

However, although he said he could not remember what caused him to fire, his
account of his shooting at someone "holding a long metallic object which
appeared to be a rifle" was "truth, definitely".

Soldier S denied one of his shots killed John Duddy, a teenager who was shot
near where Soldier S was firing from. "I would not have shot an unarmed
civilian. It is as plain and truthful as that".

Lawyers from the Ministry of Defence have admitted that none of the 13 civil
rights marchers killed on January 30 1972 - Bloody Sunday - and a 14th who
was fatally wounded was armed.

Asked about widely-published photographs showing a priest, Father Daly,
holding a white handkerchief, with marchers carrying Duddy away, Soldier S
described it as a "dreadful scene", but one which he could not recall.

He said he did not see anyone fall down in the area of Derry where he was.

Soldier S said he left the Parachute Regiment and joined the special forces,
spending nine months in what he called a "separatist war". He was involved
in "many shooting incidents during which I would have fired thousands of
rounds in total over the period".

He was seriously injured in a firefight in the Middle East in 1974-5 when he
left the army, he said. His memory had "significantly diminished" over the
years.