McGuinness ‘lied to Saville Inquiry’

SINN FÉIN chief Martin McGuinness was accused yesterday of lying to the Saville Inquiry when he claimed he sought permission from a family to give the whereabouts of an IRA safe house on Bloody Sunday.

On the final day of oral evidence at the inquiry, the leader of the Provos in Derry in January 1972 said the house at Stanley’s Walk in the Bogside, where members of the IRA met in the aftermath of the shootings, was now derelict.

Asked if he was putting anyone in danger by pointing out the location of the house, the former OC, known as PIRA 24, said: “Not at all.”

Edwin Glasgow QC, representing most of the soldiers, said this showed Mr McGuinness had engaged in an elaborate deception.

He said the Sinn Féin chief had testified on oath he had gone to the family and asked for permission to identify the house.

“I am going to suggest that was an elaborate piece of deceit but, so far as you know, there is no reason at all why the address of that house should not have been frankly identified straight away,” said Mr Glasgow.

On the second day of his evidence, PIRA 24 refused to name the whereabouts of an arms dump in the Bogside, from where he claimed weapons were moved the night before Bloody Sunday. Mr Glasgow said he would be submitting that he was in contempt of the tribunal but PIRA 24 insisted the location was irrelevant to the inquiry.

The lawyer called on him to explain his reasons for not answering to the families and the soldiers and the people on both sides of the Irish Sea. “Why should the commanding officer of the IRA, who has come along, stage-managed to give his evidence on the last day of this tribunal, why should he be in contempt of this tribunal and effectively sneer at all the people that I have just outlined?” he asked.

When PIRA 24 completed his testimony, the evidence session at the tribunal came to an end.

Meanwhile, the Bloody Sunday Tribunal is to take no action against journalists who refused to name their sources or paramilitaries who refused to identify colleagues, chairman Lord Saville said.

He said it was decided further legal action would not produce any new information of value and would delay the completion of the inquiry. But one witness, known as PIRA 9 will be reported to the High Court for contempt for ignoring subpoenas to appear before the tribunal.