McGuinness faces renewed grilling over Bloody Sunday

Martin McGuinness was facing fierce questioning from lawyers representing soldiers during his second day of evidence before the Bloody Sunday Inquiry today.

The Sinn Féin leader was under intense pressure from the Saville Inquiry to give the locations of IRA safe houses used on Bloody Sunday after being heavily criticised for refusing to disclose their locations.

He resisted all attempts by lawyers at the Inquiry yesterday to find out where Provisional guns were stored, claiming he was bound by a republican “code of honour”.

As the former IRA commander gave unprecedented testimony at a British tribunal into the shootings of 13 unarmed civilians by soldiers during a civil rights march in Derry in January, 1972, he was ordered to contact supporters who gave over their homes to the terror group.

Inquiry chairman Lord Saville told him: “You are depriving us of the opportunity of discovering the full facts and matters relating to the events of Bloody Sunday.

“It will be suggested that the reason you are not answering these questions is that you have something to hide.”

In an impassioned denial on the most dramatic day yet in the marathon £150 million hearing, Mr McGuinness insisted the Provisionals had not fired a single shot or thrown any bombs at soldiers on Bloody Sunday.

He claimed IRA snipers could have killed British soldiers had they wanted to.

The Sinn Féin leader, who admitted being second-in-command of the IRA in Derry at the time of shootings, added: “That gives the lie to the nonsense that has been peddled down the decades that the British army were fired on.

“The British army know they were not fired on by the IRA; their military commanders know they were not fired on by the IRA; their political masters know that the British Army were not fired by the IRA.”

The Mid Ulster MP agreed to give more details about his IRA past after receiving assurances from Lord Saville of an immunity from prosecution.

He admitted he was appointed as officer commanding the IRA’s Derry Brigade two weeks after the Bloody Sunday shootings and had briefly been a member of the Official IRA in 1970 before joining the Provisionals.

Under questioning from counsel to the inquiry Christopher Clarke QC, Mr McGuinness denied that he fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday, supplied component parts for nail bombs to members of the IRA’s youth wing or planned to plant a bomb in a bookmaker’s shop to kill soldiers.