Inquiry judges name Bloody Sunday para

A former Army Paratrooper who has claimed in a TV programme he opened fire in Derry’s Bogside on Bloody Sunday was named today by the judges re-investigating the shootings.

The soldier, until now only identified as Inq 23, is called David Longstaff, the Bloody Sunday Tribunal of three judges announced in a written ruling.

However, it maintained the anonymity granted to an ex-Paratrooper known as 027, who has already been named accidentally at one of its own public hearings and is now on a witness protection scheme.

027 has claimed colleagues used illegal dum-dum bullets on Bloody Sunday, January 30 1972, and deliberately shot unarmed fleeing people, some lying wounded on the ground.

Thirteen Catholic men died in Derry’s Bogside during the military operation which followed a civil rights march.

Last summer 027 was given a special package to give evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, granting him £1,400 a month for up to a year and money for a car and a house.

The ruling came as the inquiry, which was established three years ago to conduct a fresh examination of the shootings, adjourned public hearings at the Guildhall for a week-long mid-term break.

All soldiers bar the Army top brass who feature in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry have been granted anonymity, but the Inquiry judges, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, have made exceptions of soldiers whose names were deemed to be already in the public domain.

In its ruling, the tribunal said Mr Longstaff featured in a 1995 UTV documentary ‘‘Tour of Duty’’ in which he acknowledged that he was a member of the Parachute Regiment and that he fired in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday.

The ruling stated: ‘‘He was not given a code at the Widgery Inquiry as he neither testified nor gave a statement either to that Inquiry nor the Royal Military Police.

‘‘He accepts his name is in the public domain, as does his solicitor.

‘‘The Tribunal has therefore named Inq 23 as David Longstaff.’’

However, 027 was deemed to be a ‘‘borderline case’’ by the judges.

He was publicly named by Edwin Glasgow QC, acting for more than 400 of the soldiers, at a preliminary hearing of the Inquiry in April 1999 - and the name has since been placed on the Inquiry website.

The ruling stated: ‘‘Nothing was said at the hearing that day which directly linked the name of the soldier with any coded number.

‘‘A newspaper report of the hearing and a TV broadcast both repeated the name but while the TV report named the soldier, no link was made to any coded number. The newspaper article did make the connection.

‘‘The tribunal considers that it is not mention of the name of a witness that destroys anonymity. What places the identity of a witness in the public domain where that witness has been given a coded name is something said that readily links the name with the code. The test is whether that connection can be made by some thorough investigative process.

‘‘The tribunal is therefore not persuaded that what was said at the earlier hearings readily links 027 with any named people. It is only the newspaper article that makes that connection.

‘‘This is undoubtedly a borderline case but, in all the circumstances, we consider that the name of 027 is not clearly in the public domain in the sense in which the Tribunal has used that expression.

‘‘The tribunal considers that 027 is entitled to the protection accorded to other soldiers so far as that can now be done. The direction to be made gives him as much protection as can be given in the circumstances.

‘‘In any future proceedings soldier 027 will be referred to by that coded description only.’’

At day 119 of public hearings today a witness wept as he described cries and groans coming from an Army saracen where he said the body of a Bloody Sunday victim had been thrown by laughing Paratroopers.

William Patrick McDonagh was overcome and the hearing briefly adjourned as he testified about the sounds he heard from the Rossville Flats overlooking the scene.

Three of the dead are known to have been placed in the back of a military personnel carrier from the rubble barricade on Rossville Street where they fell - William Nash, Michael McDaid and John Young.

Mr McDonagh said he saw one body lifted by two soldiers, one holding it by the collar, the other by the belt, and then thrown into the vehicle feet first. The soldiers were laughing, he claimed.

Under examination from Counsel to the Inquiry, Cathryn McGahey, he said: ‘‘When there was a lull in the shooting, it seemed like time had stopped.

‘‘I know I heard groans coming from the back of that saracen. I heard cries come from the back of that saracen,’’ he said before trailing off and sobbing.

The public hearings resume at 9.30am on Monday June 4.