Bloody Sunday witness admits lying for book

A convicted IRA man today admitted telling lies about Bloody Sunday to journalist Peter Taylor, who interviewed him for a television series and book on the Provos.

OIRA 11 told the Bloody Sunday Tribunal that he led Mr Taylor to believe he was in the Provisional IRA at the time, whereas he did not switch his allegiance from the Officials until five or six weeks later.

He also admitted lying to the former Panorama reporter about his movements on the day.

In the book ‘Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein’ Taylor quotes him saying that after he heard that two people had been killed, he went down into the Bogside with another man.

He also said that he saw the body of Barney McGuigan, one of the 13 shot dead that day.

Describing the contents of the interview as a “complete untruth”, he said he got his account of seeing Mr McGuigan’s body from a photograph showing him draped with a civil rights banner.

OIRA 11 admitted lying to Mr Taylor about seeing seeing other people laying dead in the Bogside and wounded people being put into ambulances.

He told the reporter that as an IRA volunteer, he received instructions that there was to be no action taken on the day of the march.

Questioned by Counsel to the Inquiry Christopher Clarke QC, he said: “That interview was a total lie. Here I probably answered Peter’s questions on just what I heard down through the years.”

The ex-paramilitary confirmed he had been convicted to eight years in prison on explosive charges in September 1974 and a further seven years for hijacking in March 1979.

Mr Clarke told him: “It might be suggested that in the light, firstly of those convictions and of the fact that, on your own admission, you told a series of lies to Mr Taylor, that your evidence to this Tribunal should be treated with some suspicion.”

Edmund Lawson QC, representing most of the soldiers, asked why he had asked for anonymity when he had been happy to appear on screen former Mr Taylor’s documentary and to have his name used in the book.

OIRA 11 replied that he had received death threats in the past: “In the wider sense I would be afraid of loyalist attacks.”

Earlier, a former Provo rejected suggestions that the British army planned to retake Derry’s Creggan area on Bloody Sunday.

Derry nationalists have argued that the Parachute Regiment was deployed in January 1972 to teach them a lesson about who controlled ‘Free Derry’, which included the Creggan and Bogside areas.

But PIRA 23, who described himself as Officer in Charge of the Creggan said he would have known if there had been a planned operation to regain control of his area.

“I have been asked whether there was any mention of a possible incursion by the (British) army into the ‘no-go areas’ on the afternoon of the march.

“I would have known from our intelligence sources if this was going to happen. There was no such intelligence.”

He said he was not prepared to give details of the organisation’s intelligence sources.

“I am not prepared to give details save to say that I was absolutely confident on the basis of this intelligence that the army did not plan to retake our area on the day.”

His claims appear to back up evidence by British army chiefs and senior politicians that there was no plan to reclaim the ‘no-go areas’ on the day of the civil rights march.

PIRA 23 told the Saville Inquiry that he had been told by the Commanding Officer of the Derry Brigade to stay in the Creggan on the day of the march.

He said that members patrolled the area in three cars, one of which contained two rifles and a handgun.

After hearing of the shootings, he went to a house used as headquarters by the Derry Brigade.

“We had a short meeting by which time more reports had been received that people had been killed.

“The Command Staff OC referred to a killing frenzy but I have no detailed recollection of our discussion.”

He said they were later told to meet behind shops in the Creggan area, where they were told to stand down.

“The weapons in the patrol vehicle were ordered to be taken to the dump and stashed with all the other weapons.

“The Command Staff Quartermaster did this. People were shocked and frightened and it was felt that the sight of guns on the streets would only make matters worse,” he added.