March 2000

IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST

www.irishfreedomcommittee.net

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Subject: "New" Evidence on Bloody Sunday Massacre

Date: March 27, 2000

As the newest Bloody Sunday Inquiry begins today, evidence is still emerging that the massacre was no spontaneous loss of control by an overstressed Regiment; but a deliberate plan, conceived and sanctioned by the highest echelons of the British Army and British Government.

In addition, a recently leaked memo dated January 7, 1972 from Major-General Robert Ford, commander of land forces for Northern Ireland, suggests that the army adapted its battlefield issue rifle weapons specifically for that day; delivering specially redesigned high-power rifles to the Paras several weeks before the planned Civil Rights demonstration.

It has coincidentally emerged that of 29 weapons sequestered as evidence, 16 have been destroyed, two as recently as Jan 26 and 28 of this year; and 10 have been sold to “private companies” —probably mercenary armies.

Much of this “new” evidence is detailed in a book to be released Thursday, “Those Are Real Bullets Aren't They?” by Peter Pringle and Philip

Jacobson; who have also supplied the inquiry team with evidence and key documents they have uncovered.

Deirdre Fennessy

National Secretary

The Irish Freedom Committee

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Sunday Business Post

March 26, 2000

SAVILLE INQUIRY: SOLDIERS LIED ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY

By Joanne O'Brien

Evidence made available by the Saville Inquiry, which opens tomorrow in Derry, shows that senior paratroopers lied about their whereabouts and framed a young man as a nail-bomber when they gave evidence to the Widgery Tribunal.

Thirteen people were killed and one died five months later of his injuries when troops opened fire without warning on a civil rights march. A further 14 were injured.

The tribunal chaired by Lord Widgery was set up in 1972 by Edward Heath to examine the events of Bloody Sunday. Its report supported the soldiers' claims they were under attack when they opened fire. This has always been rejected by the marchers and by independent witnesses.

The crisis created by the shootings led to the fall of Stormont, the introduction of direct rule of the six counties from Westminster and an escalation of violence.

A report commissioned by the Saville Inquiry casts grave doubts on evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, which established that Gerard Donaghy, who died on Bloody Sunday, was a nail-bomber.

Some hours after the shootings Donaghy's body was photographed by the British Army with four nail-bombs sticking out of his pockets. But the forensic pathology expert to the Saville Inquiry has confirmed that Donaghy was shot through the pocket of his jeans. The expert concluded that if he had been carrying a nail-bomb, it would have exploded. No such injury occurred and the nail-bombs produced by the army were intact.

The Saville Inquiry has also been told that a soldier who was in Derry on Bloody Sunday claims that a "dress rehearsal" for the Widgery Inquiry was held in the army barracks at Aldershot. He alleges that the soldiers who gave evidence at the inquiry were not those who actually carried out the shootings. "Older and more experienced men were pulled forward and the less experienced soldiers were pulled out," he said.

A torchlight procession organised by the Bloody Sunday Trust will take place tonight to mark the beginning of the Saville Inquiry. Fourteen relatives of the dead will lead the procession from Free Derry Corner to the Guildhall Square.

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Electronic Telegraph

Sunday 26 March 2000

BLOODY SUNDAY RIFLES SOLD OVERSEAS

By David Bamber and Ted Oliver

THE Bloody Sunday inquiry, which starts tomorrow in Londonderry, will be denied access to 10 rifles used on the day of the shooting because they have been sold to a foreign army, The Telegraph has discovered.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has already announced that the army has destroyed two of the rifles used by soldiers in the 1972 shooting dead of14 civilians during a civil rights march.

However, the inquiry team was hoping that the rifles that have been sold off could be recovered and forensically examined.

MoD officials have now confirmed that they are unlikely to be found because they were included in a batch sold to an arms company for overseas use. The inquiry team, led by Lord Saville, has demanded an explanation because it had been given assurances that the remaining rifles would be preserved. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, has ordered an investigation by MoD police into why the guns were destroyed or sold.

The inquiry into the shootings in Londonderry on January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday, is expected to last 12 months and cost £100 million. It has already caused controversy when its ruling that soldiers present at the shootings should be identified was challenged in the courts.

The opening address by Christopher Clarke, QC, counsel to the tribunal, is likely to last five weeks; there may be months of legal argument before witnesses are heard. Londonderry's Guildhall has been transformed into a high-technology courtroom, linked to a cinema to accommodate the public.

Computers will create a virtual-reality image of the Bogside in 1972.

An inquiry under Lord Widgery sat for 21 days in 1972 and cleared the men of the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, of any wrongdoing.

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(Scotland) Sunday Herald

Mar 26 2000

THE TRUE STORY OF BLOODY SUNDAY DEATHS

On the eve of a new government inquiry, new evidence aims to prove the political and military planning behind the deaths of 13 people.

The first aid workers begged the paratrooper to open the back of the military truck containing the bodies of the Bloody Sunday dead. The soldiers tried to turn the Knights of Malta medics away but at that moment, as the melee of shooting and screaming unfolded around her in Derry on Sunday January 30, 1972, Alice Long heard a low moan from inside the vehicle.

She reached forward pulling open the door on the tangle of bloody bodies inside and saw the foot of one of the victims move. Her fellow medic, Leo Day, also watched the man twitch. The horror of the situation dawned on them. At least one man whose body had been picked up off the streets of the Bogside as one of the 13 victims of the Bloody Sunday massacre was alive in the back of the vehicle. The door was kicked shut and a para told Long and Day not to look in the truck. Then, the unthinkable happened. According to Long, the soldier raised his rifle, pointed it through a firing-slat in the truck's door and released three shots.

Long has just revealed the nightmarish claim - that a member of the British army's elite murdered a dying, unarmed civilian on the streets of Northern Ireland - 28 years after it allegedly took place. She went on to claim that the soldier told her: "They'll not make any more noise now."

The horrifying claim is recounted in a new book written by two of the star witnesses who are to give evidence at the new inquiry into Bloody Sunday, which opens in Derry tomorrow. It is not the only devastating claim Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson make in Those Are Bullets Aren't They?, an exhaustive investigation of the day the British army's parachute regiment opened fire on a civil rights demonstration in Derry. Pringle and Jacobson will also claim in evidence to the Saville inquiry that the killings were a deliberate plan, conceived and sanctioned by the highest echelons of the British army and the UK government.

The new inquiry, set up by Tony Blair to re-investigate the events of Bloody Sunday, will be rocked by the allegations in the book, which is due to be published next Thursday. Ministry of Defence insiders say the book is an attempt to hijack the inquiry and damage the army's reputation. The original inquiry by Lord Widgery cleared the Paras. Blair effectively discredited Widgery's findings when he ordered the new inquiry last year to "establish the truth".

Pringle and Jacobson have supplied the inquiry team, headed by Lord Saville of Newdigate, with a series of key documents relating to the events of Bloody Sunday. The most telling evidence, supporting Pringle and Jacobson's claims of an army policy of shoot-to-kill, comes from Major-General Robert Ford, commander of land forces for Northern Ireland.

In internal army reports on January 7, 1972, he said: "I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot ringleaders among the Derry Young Hooligans [military slang for rioting republican youths]."

The army also planned an "invasion" of the Bogside if violence erupted at the civil rights march. General Sir Michael Carver, the chief of the Defence Staff in London, accepted that suppressing Catholic enclaves would require a major military operation, which would doubtless lead to many civilian deaths. Ford believed his plan to "invade" the Bogside made good military sense and presciently noted that any offensive military action against Catholics would result in civilian deaths. He also warned: "Much will be made of the slaughter of the innocents."

He added that military incursions would lead to a boost in recruitment for the IRA. He was right. In early 1972, the IRA was almost beaten to a standstill by the army but after Bloody Sunday its ranks were swelled with young Catholics angered at the massacre. Ford went on to say that the "hooligans" in Derry could no longer be pacified with the existing "minimum force" methods of tear gas and rubber bullets. He said he was coming to the conclusion that the level of force now required was "to shoot selected ring leaders among the DYH, after clear warnings have been issued".

Ford even suggested to his immediate superior, Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Tuzo, then General Officer commanding Northern Ireland, that the army adapt its battlefield issue rifle for a shoot-to-kill policy in Ulster.

Concerned that standard issue bullets could pass through the bodies of selected targets and kill other civilians, he suggested reducing the rifle's calibre from a 7.62mm round to a smaller .22 bullet. This would still be lethal but pose less threat of "collateral damage". Ford said these adapted weapons should be issued to troops during riots to "engage" ringleaders, and admitted that 30 such weapons had been delivered for "zeroing" (lining up the weapon's sights) and "familiarisation training".

The government came to accept the use of a shoot-to-kill policy on the streets of Ireland. One MoD paper said current force levels were failing to maintain order and that required "additional measures for the physical control of crowds". This would lead to the use of firearms, it was said, and the result would be a policy of "disperse or we fire".

At one meeting with Conservative prime minister Edward Heath, at his Cabinet committee on Northern Ireland, even more extreme measures were voiced. Lord Hailsham, then Lord Chancellor, pressed for the army to adopt an effective shoot-to-kill policy in Ulster, arguing that anyone obstructing the armed forces was an enemy of the state. On January 27, a joint security committee at Stormont decided: "The operation might well develop into rioting and even a shooting war."

Long before the IRA returned fire on army positions, Pringle and Jacobson maintain, the Paras began shooting civilians. Claims by the army that they thought some marchers were armed with explosives have been consistently dismissed.

According to the army, Gerald Donaghy's dead body was found with nail bombs on it, including one in his jacket pocket. The claim does not stand up to scrutiny given that the bullet which killed Donaghy went through the pocket the bomb was allegedly in. The bullet could not have passed through the pocket without hitting the bomb.

Peggy Deery, a mother of 14, was just one of the unarmed civilians shot that day. She saw a paratrooper take aim in her direction from about 25 yards. He fired and she was shot in the thigh. As she was lying on the ground, the para aimed again. She begged: "Mister, don't shoot. I've 14 children and I'm all they have." He then moved away from her.

During the subsequent Widgery inquiry, which Pringle and Jacobson describe as a "propaganda exercise", a paratrooper captain admitted he did not see any civilians with weapons on the streets. Army claims at the time that four of the dead civilians were on security force wanted lists were nonsense. None of the victims was wanted.

In the days after the shootings, as a mob in Dublin burned the British embassy in protest, Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery met with Heath to discuss the handling of the inquiry. The meeting was highly irregular given that the inquiry was meant to be fully independent. Widgery even suggested to Heath that the inquiry should limit itself to the brief period covering the shootings. This obviously ruled out any investigation of the political and military planning behind the operation. Official minutes show Heath urged Widgery to bear in mind that Britain was "fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war". From tomorrow, the new Saville inquiry, if Tony Blair is to believed, will eliminate the propaganda surrounding Bloody Sunday from all sides - both from the military and the republicans - and attempt to find the truth, at last, of the worst atrocity carried out by British troops against British civilians since the Peterloo massacre of 1819.

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The Irish Echo

February 23-29, 2000

MORE BLOODY SUNDAY RIFLES ARE ‘MISSING’

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST - Anger and dismay were expressed at news that two more rifles used by the British Parachute Regiment to kill 14 people on Bloody Sunday have "gone missing," leaving only three of the original weapons intact for forensic testing.

The British Ministry of Defence has again been accused of deliberately trying to frustrate the work of the new inquiry. Defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, said the disposal of the rifles happened despite orders for them not to be moved and said it was a matter of "deep regret." He has ordered an investigation by ministry of defence police and has invited a representative from the new Bloody Sunday inquiry, opening next month under Lord Saville, to send an observer.

But Gregory McCartney, solicitor for the family of Jim Wray who was one of the 14 who died in the 1972 shootings, said: "This could not have happened accidentally.

"The rifles had to be kept in safe conditions and somebody cannot walk in and take the rifles by accident and destroy them. This can only be regarded as a deliberate attempt by the Ministry of Defence to frustrate the workings of the Saville Inquiry and prevent the truth of Bloody Sunday ever coming out."

The two weapons were among only five self-loading rifles left which could have been used as evidence by the inquiry. Hoon said 14 had already been destroyed as the part of the programme to take them out of service.

Another 10 had been sold to private companies, leaving just five.

Some sources in Derry claim the two rifles were not SLRs but sniper rifles known as "303 Mk 4"s. These are single shot sniper rifles with a scope which, one user said "enables you to focus in real close."

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The Electronic Telegraph

Saturday 19 February 2000

BLOODY SUNDAY RIFLES GO MISSING

By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent

THE Bloody Sunday inquiry expressed "grave concern" last night at the admission by the Ministry of Defence that the Army had disposed of two of the rifles used by soldiers in the 1972 killings.

Nationalist politicians and relatives of the 14 people shot dead claimed the weapons had been deliberately destroyed to frustrate the official inquiry, which starts public hearings in Londonderry next month.

The inquiry team, headed by Lord Saville, demanded an explanation because it had been given prior assurances by the MoD that the five remaining rifles would all be preserved as evidence.

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said the unauthorised disposal was a matter of "deep regret" and ordered an investigation by MoD police, in which he invited a representative from the inquiry to be an observer.

The disappearance of the rifles came to light after the inquiry asked the MoD to locate the 29 weapons thought to have been fired in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday.

That type of self-loading rifle was taken out of service in November 1997, and by the time the inquiry request had been made, 14 had been destroyed and another 10 sold to private companies.

Mr Hoon said in a writen Commons answer: "Despite an embargo on the movement of the remaining five, two of these rifles were destroyed on Jan 26 and 28, 2000."

He assured MPs that the the remaining three rifles had been secured, although a spokesman for the inquiry said it would be asking the Defence Secretary to try to locate the 10 weapons that were sold.

Gregory McCartney, solicitor of the family of Jimmy Wray, one of those killed in the shootings, said: "This could not have happened accidentally."

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The Guardian

October 21, 1999

BLOODY SUNDAY: “TRUTH WAS KNOWN 25 YEARS AGO”

Eamonn McCann

Eamonn McCann examines evidence that the Government of the day were trying to defend the indefensible

The Government knew more than 25 years ago that it could not defend the shooting of a number of the men killed by British soldiers in Derry on Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972.

A year after the shootings, the Ministry of Defence was advised by the then Attorney-General, Sir Peter Rawlinson, that the Crown would have 'no prospect of a successful defence' if actions for damages by the families of four of the victims went to court.

The four men named in a letter dated 21 February 1973 were James Wray, Gerald McKinney, Gerard Donaghey and William McKinney, all shot in an enclosed courtyard, Glenfada Park. Forensic reports commissioned by the new inquiry under Lord Saville of Newdigate and published last week suggest that Wray, 22, was 'most likely' lying on the ground when he was shot twice at a range of about one metre.

The first Bloody Sunday inquiry in April 1972, under the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, concluded that the shooting in Glenfada Park by men of the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment had 'bordered on the reckless'. That was as close as Widgery came to condemnation of any Army action on the day.

The new forensic evidence suggests a bullet that struck another of the Glenfada Park dead, Gerard Donaghy, had passed through the pocket of his denim jacket. This appears to refute the allegation, accepted by Widgery but contested by the Donaghy family, that the 17-year-old had been carrying unexploded nail-bombs in his jacket pockets.

In three other cases - Jackie Duddy, Patrick Doherty and Bernard McGuigan - Rawlinson advised in February 1973 that 'it is highly unlikely that the Crown could be successful in a defence'. The new forensic evidence suggests that McGuigan, 41, a father-of-six, may have been shot through the back of the head by a 'dum-dum' bullet illegally tampered with to fragment on impact.

The Attorney-General's advice is quoted in a letter, dated 17 December 1973, from him to Defence Minister Lord Carrington saying a decision in principle was now required as to whether negotiations should be undertaken to settle 13 claims lodged by families of the Bloody Sunday dead.

Rawlinson advised that in two other cases - those of Kevin McElhinney and Hugh Gilmore - 'the Crown's position is not strong'. He believed the Crown's best hope of success lay in the cases of John Young, Michael McDaid, William Nash and Michael Kelly, in which there was 'a reasonable chance of defeating the claims'. (In 1974, on the advice of their solicitors, the families settled the actions on the basis of ex gratia payments.)

The reports published last week seem to discredit evidence from former Northern Ireland Office forensic scientist Dr John Martin, which Widgery relied on in finding a 'strong suspicion' that some of the dead had been handling guns or bombs or had been 'closely supporting' gunmen or bombers.

In a statement to the new inquiry, Martin has conceded that tests for lead particles on which he relied in 1972 were inconclusive.

Tony Doherty, son of Patrick Doherty, said yesterday: 'What all this shows is that the British Government at the very highest levels has known almost from the beginning that they were defending the indefensible in standing by the Widgery findings.

'Widgery exonerated the soldiers on the basis of the forensic evidence plus their own accounts. The forensic evidence is now exploded.'

Documents in the hands of inquiry lawyers throw new light on the thinking of senior Army officers about the security situation in Derry before Bloody Sunday, and on the response of Prime Minister Edward Heath in the aftermath.

The Bogside and Creggan areas of Derry had been barricaded since the first week of July 1971 following an upsurge of violence during which two local men had been shot dead by soldiers. The introduction of internment without trial the following month had further aggravated the situation.

In a memo addressed to the General Officer Commanding British Forces, Lt. Gen. Sir Harry Tuzo, and headed 'The situation in Londonderry as at 7th January 1972', the Commander of Land Forces in the North, General Robert Ford, expressed alarm at 'yobbo activity' by the 'Derry Young Hooligans'.

He went on: 'I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ring leaders among the DYH, after clear warnings have been issued. In other words, we would be reverting to the methods of IS found successful on many occasions overseas.' ('IS' means 'internal security'.)

In a paper on 'Marches in 1972', dated 27 January, a senior Army planner in the North, Lt Col Harry Dalzell-Payne, tried to 'anticipate some of the problems we may face on Monday 31 Jan 72, if events on Sunday prove our worst fears'. He wrote: 'We must take stronger military measures which will inevitably lead to further accusations of "brutality and ill-treatment of non-violent demonstrators".'

The paper concludes: 'The only additional measure left for physical control is the use of firearms i.e. "Disperse or we fire". Inevitably, it would not be the gunmen who would be killed but "innocent members of the crowd". This would be tantamount to saying "all else has failed", and for this reason must be rejected except in extremis. It cannot, however, be ruled out. We must await the outcome of the events planned for the weekend of 29/30 Jan 72.'

The transcript of a conversation between Heath and Irish Taoiseach Jack Lynch hours after the shooting suggests the Prime Minister's instinct was to reject suggestions that British soldiers might have acted wrongly.

The telephone call was initiated by Lynch who begins by apologising for ringing 'at this hour'. Lynch then warns that 'there will be a very serious reaction in our country tomorrow. I hate to think what could happen.' He urges 'some serious political action. on your part,' and suggests Westminster take over control of security policy from the Unionist Government at Stormont.

Heath seems brusque in reply, insisting the shooting 'arose out of a march which was against the law' and that the organisers 'carry a very heavy responsibility for any damage which ensued'. Lynch contributes around 70 per cent of the conversation. Heath repeatedly ascribes culpability to nationalists and civil rights organisers. Heath, on five occasions, rejects Lynch's more tentative censures of the British Army as prejudicing the issue.

Lynch tells Heath what, in general terms, he proposes to say publicly about their conversation. Heath does not reciprocate, but aggressively challenges the point Lynch promises to report that he has made – that Westminster should take over control of security - and turns the implied accusation back towards the civil rights demonstrators: 'Well, you tell me how taking over security. is going to make people obey the law.'

Heath responds to Lynch's suggestion that 'the whole thing arises as a result of the Stormont regime.' by interrupting, 'It arises out of the IRA trying to take over the country.' (Within weeks, Heath was to act on Lynch's suggestion and move to take control of security. It was Stormont's refusal to give up this control willingly that led to the prorogation of the Belfast parliament on 24 March 1972.)

At a number of other points, it seems to be Lynch, not Heath, who is under reprimand. If Lynch had denounced the Derry march in advance, Heath suggests, the killings might never have happened.

At no stage does Heath express personal regret for the deaths. The closest he comes is an acknowledgment that 'there will be. feelings of regret' in Britain. This is conceded in the context of the 'very strong feeling' which, he says, is likely against the organisers of the march.

Neither man mentions the plight of the families of the dead or the condition of the wounded.

(Eamonn McCann is a freelance journalist, a former leader of the civil rights movement in the North and the author of 'Bloody Sunday in Derry: What really happened'.)

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The Guardian

Saturday September 18, 1999

SHOOTING THE IRISH

Jeremy Hardy

The truth about Bloody Sunday is emerging now. It could not be suppressed for ever

It is such a simple piece of distortion. We hear the words "Bloody Sunday" on the news and up pops that footage of rioting youths. The viewer is led to conclude either that soldiers fired in self-defence or that they panicked in the confusion. The second interpretation is over-generous in this instance but it is the more plausible. Clearly soldiers are wound up before going into combat. Indeed, a paratrooper known to the Saville inquiry as Soldier 027, states that, in a briefing the night before, the men from the anti-tank platoon who went berserk on Bloody Sunday, were ordered to "get some kills". Moreover, an interesting new book by Ally Renwick called “Hidden Wounds” explores the damage that can be done to people's minds by military service and details how a number end up in jail for violent crimes. However, if you believe that military service does young men a power of good, it is essential that you believe that soldiers are paragons of self-control, at least when on duty. No one is particularly surprised if an off-duty soldier rapes or murders, because out of uniform they are not representing queen or country and so can be said only to have brought discredit to themselves.

But when uniformed soldiers open up on unarmed civilians, one can expect decades in which army officers, politicians and newspapers do their best to suppress the truth. The new findings which clear Bloody Sunday victims of handling weapons must have rattled the Telegraph so much that it was felt best to ignore them. The Mail rallied to the Paras, although the only coherent objection it could make was that the Saville inquiry is still sitting and it is wrong for the Paras to have to face the truth in dribs and drabs.

And yet the findings, while new, are not unprecedented. A scientist called Dr Krishnan discounted the evidence of Dr John Martin in 1972, in a paper challenging the findings of Lord Widgery. He accused Martin of using chemicals which had been out of favour since the 50s. Dr JBF Lloyd now says Martin's findings were worthless, pointing out that lead found on the bodies could have come from various sources, including the very bullets that killed them and the fact that the bodies were handled by soldiers.

The army, despite claims to have been answering fire and shooting at bombers, never produced any recovered bullets or captured weaponry, except in the case of 17-year-old Gerard Donaghy, whom they said was carrying nail bombs. His family have always said that the bombs were planted on his body. Now medical reports show that one of the bombs, if it had been in his pocket as alleged, would have been hit by the bullet that killed him.

The Mail's claims that acid bombs were thrown at soldiers stand in contrast to the fact that no soldiers were treated for acid burns that day. Rioting indeed happened. The items thrown were a number of rocks and bottles and one CS cannister which had been fired by the army the day before and had failed to go off. There were no petrol bombs. Moreover, at the time of the shootings, the trouble had mostly died down and demonstrators were making their way to a rally as troops swept through the area.

One can often be deceived that soldiers have killed because they panicked.

Consider the misinformation about the shooting of joy- riders Karen Reilly and Martin Peake in 1990. Acres of comment attempting to vindicate Private Clegg, who to this day stands convicted of wounding Peake with intent and still serves in the army, -- (Poster’s note: this conviction was overturned, just as his pevious conviction for Karen Reilly’s murder was, on January 31, 2000)-- described the car driving through a checkpoint. Soldiers are in any case only meant to fire in self-defence but the scene portrayed appears a lot more dramatic than the reality of a car driving past a foot patrol.

Then we had the shooting of Peter McBride by the Scots Guards Wright and Fisher in 1992. The great and good - well, Martin Bell and Ludovic Kennedy - have told us the soldiers had feared that McBride was going to throw a coffee-jar bomb at them. Even the judge at trial found this preposterous, given that the patrol had searched the victim moments before he was shot.

Today, Wright and Fisher are serving in Kosovo under the overall command of General Sir Michael Jackson. Jackson was the adjutant on duty on Bloody Sunday. His version of events, given in an interview in 1990, is that he didn't see anything but he is sure his soldiers wouldn't have acted in the way alleged.

But all the emerging evidence suggests that everything the families have said for 27 years is true. People were shot at close range, some lying on the ground. Some were shot by army snipers on the city walls. The bullet that destroyed Barnie McGuigan's brain disintegrated into 42 fragments, which strongly suggests it was an illegal dumdum. Perhaps these facts will demoralise the army and give comfort to republicans. Well, tough. Truth is the first casualty of war, but sometimes it survives.

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RTE

September 16 1999 17:30

BLOODY SUNDAY EVIDENCE COULD BE FATALLY FLAWED

with Cristín Leach

It has emerged that evidence indicating that some of those killed in the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry had been handling weapons, could be fatally flawed. Reports submitted to the new Saville Inquiry re-investigating the 1972 killings, suggest some of the victims might have been wrongly suspected of carrying guns and explosives.

In the original Widgery inquiry held in 1972, in the aftermath of the Bloody Sunday killings, forensic evidence was produced to corroborate statements from the British Paratroopers involved in the shootings, alleging that several of the those shot dead had been handling weapons.

Now the author of that forensic report has told the Saville Inquiry which is re-investigating the deaths of the fourteen people, that the presence of lead on the hands of the deceased did not mean there was a strong suspicion they were exposed to gunfire.

Dr John Martin says he now believes that where a test proved positive this could have resulted from contamination from other sources such as motor exhausts, which at the time were not fully evaluated. Greg McCartney, a Derry solicitor representing some of the families of the Bloody Sunday victims, said an expert witness employed by Lord Saville's current investigation team, had concluded that the evidence submitted to the original inquiry was worthless. A public hearing of the Saville Inquiry is due to held in Derry at the end of this month, and the full tribunal is expected to start next March.

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RTE

Saturday, September 04, 1999 10:12 PM

BRITISH ARMY PLANNED MASS MURDER IN DERRY, DOCUMENT SHOWS

A top secret British Army memo discussed a plan to shoot innocent civilians "to restore law and order" in Derry during outlawed nationalist marches in early 1972. The shocking massacre plan, revealed by the Sunday Tribune newspaper, was formulated on 27 January 1972 -- three days before Bloody Sunday, when 14 civilians were gunned down by British soldiers during a march against internment.

The revelations came in one of several documents which have recently become available to the new Bloody Sunday inquiry under Lord Saville. The slaughter was described in the document as a possible "final" measure to put down nationalist resistance. The same reasoning has been used by the former British Prime Minister, Ted Heath, who compared Bloody Sunday with the 1992 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.

The paper, titled "Marches in 1972", was written by Lt Col Harry Dalzell-Payne. He detailed a series of "stronger military measures" to British military and political leaders as ways to combat the growing nationalist resistance exhibited in outlawed civil rights protests.

He concludes: "The only additional measure left for physical control is the use of firearms, ie, Disperse or we fire." This action would lead to the deaths of "innocent members of the crowd", notes Dalzell-Payne. He concedes this would be "harsh" and "tantamount to saying all else has failed" -- but that despite the consequences, the plan "cannot be ruled out".

Days later, as a huge civil rights march passed Rossville flats on its way to Derry city centre, the first demonstrators fell, and the murder plan was put into devastating effect by the officers of the Paratroop regiment.

The extraordinary revelations are likely to cast a pall over peace talks to resume in Belfast tomorrow to review the failure to implement last year's Good Friday Agreement.

Other extracts reveal similarly bloody military strategies to cope with the no-go nationalist areas of the Bogside and Creggan areas of Derry. These included a plan to simply shoot "selected ringleaders" among the "hooligans" in the area. A more bizarre plan called for the spread of disease and the disruption of essential services to ensure the barricaded areas "rot from within".

An alternative measure, which was dismissed as "not serious", was to peacefully withdraw and cede parts of Derry to the 26 Counties.

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