British army 'planned shootings to lure IRA'

The most senior police officer in Derry told a businessman that the British army decided to shoot civilians to lure the IRA into a gun battle on Bloody Sunday, it was claimed today.

Brendan Duddy said that Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan gave him the information on the morning after 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead during a civil rights march in the city’s Bogside area.

“He told me that the army had decided to take out two or three soft targets in the area of the high flats with the intention of provoking a firefight with the IRA,” he said.

“I was appalled. I could not accept that a human being would kill another human being indiscriminately.”

Mr Lagan was too ill to give oral evidence but there is no mention of the meeting in the statement he gave to the inquiry or in evidence he gave to the Widgery Tribunal in 1972.

Mr Duddy, the 921st and final witness to give evidence, said that 10 days before Bloody Sunday Mr Lagan asked him to seek assurances from republican paramilitaries that there would be no guns near the march.

The businessman said he received assurances from both the leadership of both wings of the IRA that all weapons would be removed.

During a meeting with the late Malachy McGurran of the Official Republican movement he was told that there would be no arms, but individual members would participate in the march.

As he had no contact with the Provisionals in Derry, he said he drove to County Roscommon to speak to former Sinn Féin president Ruairi O Bradaigh.

“He made it clear he could not make any promises. He asked me to leave the issue of weapons removal with him and said he would come back to me.”

Mr Duddy said he was contacted three days before Bloody Sunday by either Mr O Bradaigh or a representative and told that there would be no weapons near the march.

Counsel to the Inquiry Christopher Clarke QC pointed out that evidence Mr Lagan gave to the Widgery Tribunal and his statement to the Saville Inquiry was that he was not in the Bogside at the time people were killed and wounded.

“Did he, do you recall, explain at all what was the basis of him saying what he said, that the army had decided to take out two or three soft targets?”

Mr Duddy said Mr Lagan did not explain how he came by the information but added there was no possibility that he could have been mistaken about the encounter.

Mr Clarke asked him why he had left it so late to give evidence to the inquiry.

He replied: “I just could not face being here.”

The inquiry has now adjourned until October, when Mr Clarke will deliver his closing statement. This is expected to last two weeks.

The final report by Lord Saville and his two fellow judges is expected to be published in the spring of next year.