Bloody Sunday soldier ‘heard no shots before Bogside invasion’

A former British soldier has told the Saville Inquiry in London that he did not hear any gunfire before the British army invaded the IRA-controlled Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday more than 31 years ago.

The former platoon commander, identified only as Soldier 41, said the first shots he heard on January 30, 1972, rang out as his colleagues ran into the Bogside area.

The British army has claimed that it only opened fire on Bloody Sunday after coming under fire from IRA gunmen during an operation ostensibly designed to arrest rioters.

Local residents, however, have insisted that no shots were fired at the soldiers before they launched their attack on a Catholic civil rights march, killing 13 unarmed civilians.

Soldier 41 also said today that he believed one of his colleagues shot a man in the window of a derelict building in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday.

Last week, Soldier Z said he fired at a gunman in a derelict building in Abbey Street and believed he scored a direct hit.

Soldier 46 said today that he remembered Soldier Z firing the shot and when he looked at the target through his binoculars, he saw a man’s arm hanging out of a window. He said the arm slumped back and disappeared, an indication that "either the man had been hit or, alternatively, someone was pulling him back into the building".

The British army has always claimed that it killed and injured several IRA gunmen on Bloody Sunday along with the innocent civilians who also died or were hurt.

The British army has claimed that the IRA dead and injured were secretly transported across the border for burial and treatment and that local residents have been covering up the incident for the past 31 years.