Former IRA men in bid for inquiry anonymity

Five former Official IRA men are to make a bid for anonymity at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry later today.

The five have said they are willing to testify to the huge probe in Derry but are fighting to conceal their identities, citing fears for their lives otherwise.

The men are all said to have been members of the Official IRA - the forerunner to the Provisional IRA - on January 30 1972, when British Army paratroopers opened fire during a civil rights march in Derry, killing 13 Catholic men and youths.

The new hearings in the city’s Guildhall, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, have already heard accounts of ‘‘civilian’’ gunfire in the area that day.

While lawyers for most of the soldiers have accepted that the known dead and injured were innocent of any wrong-doing, they have maintained that troops did come under attack.

The group came forward in February this year after appeals from relatives of those killed for the full truth to be heard, however unpalatable.

A lawyer acting for the former paramilitaries said then that they offered a ‘‘positive and possibly very, very significant impact’’ on proceedings but had concerns for their safety.

Submissions on the subject are expected to be heard during the afternoon session of today’s sitting.

The inquiry, which was established in 1998, resumed public hearings on Monday after the summer recess.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness is expected to give evidence in the coming months and rebut claims from an MI5 agent that he fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday.

Mr McGuinness has admitted being the Provisional IRA’s second-in-command in Derry on Bloody Sunday.