Bloody Sunday soldier says shooting was justified

A former British army commander has told the Saville Inquiry that one of his soldiers was justified in shooting a civilian on Bloody Sunday because the man was allegedly carrying a gun.

The commander, identified only as Soldier 014, was a sergeant in charge of eight men involved in the killing of 13 Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry on January 30, 1972.

He told the Saville Inquiry today that he and his colleagues saw two civilian gunmen crawling from the rubble barricade on Rossville Street to the nearby flats complex on Bloody Sunday.

Soldier 014 said one of his men opened fire on one of the gunmen.

"I did not give any orders, but I did not have to," he said. "Faced with a man carrying a weapon, the soldier was justified in shooting."

The British army has claimed that it shot several IRA gunmen on Bloody Sunday, but local residents and those involved in the civil rights march have insisted that everyone who was killed or injured was unarmed.