Bloody Sunday para to give controversial evidence

A former paratrooper who was threatened with contempt of court proceedings for refusing to appear before the Bloody Sunday inquiry is to give evidence from behind a screen today.

Soldier L failed to turn up to give evidence to the Saville Inquiry last month, telling his lawyers he was feeling increasingly fearful.

However, contempt of court proceedings were suspended when it was confirmed he was prepared to co-operate as long as he was screened from public view.

The tribunal is investigating the events of January 30, 1972 when a total of 13 of unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry.

Soldier L, who fired a number of shots on Bloody Sunday, was due to give controversial evidence including claims that the former Bishop of Derry, Edward Daly, then a parish priest, concealed two rifles under his cassock.

He has also claimed he saw another soldier fire so many shots into a body at point blank range, that when other soldiers lifted it on to a British army vehicle, it split in two.

In his statement to the Inquiry, the former paratrooper said his intention on Bloody Sunday was to get Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, then second-in-command of the IRA in Derry, “dead or alive”.

He also claimed that he saw plastic explosives at the rubble barricade in Rossville Street, where four of the victims were shot dead.