Bloody Sunday victim was smuggled across border

A man who was seriously injured on Bloody Sunday, when a canister of CS gas blasted into his face, was later smuggled south of the border for treatment, the Saville Inquiry heard today.

Hugh Heggarty told the hearing in the Guildhall in Derry today that he refused to go into a hospital in the North because he feared being wrongly convicted of rioting and facing a prison term of six months.

Mr Heggarty is the first witness to admit receiving treatment outside of the UK jurisdiction.

Lawyers for the British army paratroopers have been probing ex-UK treatments as part of a theory that there were "hidden casualties", which may have included gunmen, on Bloody Sunday, .

Mr Heggarty told the inquiry that he lost most of his teeth and was badly cut by the missile, which struck him while he was on the fringe of Derry’s Bogside, before paratroopers entered the district after a civil rights march.

A total of 13 people were shot dead during the military manouvre, which was supposed to be an arrest operation.

The witness also admitted being involved in rioting before Bloody Sunday, but said he had no part in the trouble that flared up that day. He also said that two days after the killings, he was taken across the border to Letterkenny, Co Donegal in what he described as "an elaborate scheme".