Soldier shot man waving white hanky, claims witness

A man today described watching a soldier take aim and shoot a man in the head as the victim was waving a white handkerchief on Bloody Sunday.

John Hutton told the Saville Inquiry re-examining the killings he would never forget the killing of Barney McGuigan, the victim whose body was photographed lying face up in a pool of blood in what became one of the defining images of events that day.

Giving evidence at the Guildhall in Derry, Mr Hutton said he watched the horrifying events unfold through the window of a house on Joseph Place, to the south of the main sphere of action that day.

In his written evidence he described seeing a small soldier ‘‘sticking his head out around the corner’’ from Glenfada Park North - across the road from where Mr McGuigan was sheltering with others on the forecourt of the Rossville Flats - and then withdrawing.

He claimed the same soldier then stepped out three feet from the corner on his own, got down on his right knee and fired a single shot between a gap in the flats, apparently at a young man wearing denim jeans who then fell to the ground as the soldier withdrew.

About a minute later he claimed he then saw Mr McGuigan move out from cover hunching over, keeping his head down and waving a white hanky in his right hand.

He said: ‘‘He only took about two or three steps and I saw the same wee soldier look out again, step out about three feet from the corner, go down on his right knee and shoot his rifle.

‘‘Barney McGuigan seemed to be hit in the right side of the head and the force of the bullet spun him so that he was facing towards me and then he fell onto his back.’’

Under questioning from junior Counsel to the inquiry Alan Roxburgh, he maintained that the soldier he saw was the one who shot Mr McGuigan, saying: ‘‘I will never forget it, it was him.’’