M15 officer 'not aware informer's account was nonsense'

A secret service officer said today he was not aware an account he received about Bloody Sunday from an informer he regarded as reliable was nonsense.

The MI5 officer, known only as Julian, said he did not make any formal assessment of Observer B’s reliability when he took over handling his case from Army intelligence.

Observer B claimed he was told the IRA fired the first shots on Bloody Sunday, and alleged he saw IRA members carrying out military drills in the city in the week before soldiers shot dead 13 civil rights marchers. The informer died last year.

Julian told the Saville Inquiry in London today that he understood from Observer B’s intelligence that paratroopers were pinned down at a rubble barricade by firing coming from Glenfada Park on January 30, 1972.

Barry MacDonald, QC, representing most of the families of the dead and injured, said: “Did you subsequently establish that that was nonsense?” “No,” Julian replied.

“Did you make any effort to establish whether or not this information you received from Observer B accorded with the facts as suggested even by the paratroopers?” Mr MacDonald asked.

“No, we did not have any communication with the paratroopers, nor would it have been my job to do so,” Julian replied.

When asked was it not his job to test the reliability of the information he was receiving, Julian replied: “It was my job to rely on the reliability of the agent who supplied the information and on that I was perfectly satisfied.”

Mr MacDonald added: “We already know the soldiers did not get to the barricade and were not pinned down at the barricade and did not run along that line that you have outlined on the map?”

“I was not aware of that and I had no reason to doubt what Observer B was saying,” Julian replied.

The MI5 officer said it was possible Observer B could have been mistaken in his dating of when he saw the drilling of IRA members as in the week before Bloody Sunday.

Lord Gifford, QC, representing the family of James Wray, asked Julian whether all the other information Observer B provided about Bloody Sunday was not seen by him, but came from reported speech.

Julian agreed but insisted Observer B was “not an idiot” and he was able to judge the reliability of what he was hearing.

Julian, who handled Observer B in the 1970s, said he believed the information given by the deceased informer was reliable.

The officer was screened from the public gallery in Methodist Central Hall in London to maintain his anonymity.

He said Observer B, was “perfectly reliable and truthful”.

“I would say from my experience that Observer B was a very valuable agent. He didn’t have anything to gain by lying to us,” he said.

“I believe his motivation to have been a desire for peace. He was a brave man in that the work he undertook was very dangerous.”

Julian said Observer B, who was originally from England, gave the majority of his information on Protestant paramilitaries and was not paid a salary for two years after being originally recruited as an informer by the army in 1970.

Julian was the first of several security service officers who will give evidence to the Saville Inquiry in the next two weeks about what intelligence they had about IRA activity at the time of Bloody Sunday.

The Inquiry is examining the events of January 30, 1972 when 13 civilians were shot dead by soldiers during a civil rights march in Derry. A 14th person died later.

The serving and former officers will testify about two informers codenamed Observer B and Infliction.

Infliction has said Martin McGuinness told him he fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday, a claim denied by Mr McGuinness.

However, the tribunal ruled Infliction should not testify, as to do so could put his life at risk. Observer B died last year.

The inquiry, which usually sits at the Guildhall in Derry, is currently hearing the evidence from military witnesses and others in London because of concerns for their safety.