Ex-IRA 'seek anonymity at Bloody Sunday probe'

Former members of the IRA are set to apply to give evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry anonymously after the tribunal resumes today.

At least two former members of the Provisional IRA and one from the Official IRA are listed to give evidence this week and are expected to seek anonymity.

It is understood their grounds will be that to be identified in public will put them at risk from loyalist paramilitaries.

The inquiry has been in recess over Christmas and New Year and is resuming for what is expected to be its final weeks.

Lord Saville and his two tribunal colleagues had hoped to complete hearing evidence before Christmas but it became clear during November that would not be possible.

Now however the end is in sight and evidence is expected to be wrapped up within weeks.

Lawyers representing the inquiry, the families and the security forces will all make closing statements before Lord Saville retires to write his report.

It is expected to be late in the year before he and his colleagues present their findings to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It is almost six years since Tony Blair announced that a new inquiry into the killing of 13 people – a 14th died later in hospital – during a civil rights march in Derry in January 1972 should take place.

So far the tribunal has heard evidence from almost 900 witnesses and has cost in excess of £120m (€172.6m).

It is not in dispute that paratroopers opened fire killing the victims during the banned march.

What Lord Saville and his colleagues have to try to decide is whether they had come under fire first – as claimed by the troops but rejected by civilian witnesses.

The inquiry spent a large part of 2003 sitting in London hearing evidence from former soldiers who were in the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday, including most of those who opened fire killing or injuring.

They insisted they only shot at gunmen and nail bombers – though none of the dead was armed when their bodies were recovered.

When the inquiry returned to Derry’s Guildhall in the autumn, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness was the most high profile of former IRA members to give evidence.

He confirmed he was the IRA’s second in command in Derry on Bloody Sunday, but insisted all members of the IRA obeyed orders not to shoot at the army that day.

He refused an order from Lord Saville to name other IRA members in the city in 1972, insisting he would “rather die than give the name of any other IRA member“.