Bloody Sunday Soldier to continue evidence
The former Parachute Regiment soldier, known as soldier 027, who has been giving his evidence anonymously, said today he fabricated his original eyewitness account of the Bloody Sunday shootings that put soldiers in a positive light.
Soldier 027 was taken today line-by-line through his statement to the Royal Military Police, given days after Bloody Sunday, when paratroopers killed 13 unarmed men on a civil rights march in Derry on January 30 1972.
In his evidence this morning, he rejected claims made in his account that he saw gunmen and petrol bombers.
He told the Saville Inquiry that while he was unable to recollect precisely his frame of mind or outlook at the time, he believed he would have felt it to be the correct thing to do at the time.
His account differs from the official British army claim that only justifiable shootings were carried out against rioting gunmen and bombers.
Soldier 027 contends that his RMP statement includes facts that have been altered and added as justification for the shootings.
Under questioning by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel for the inquiry, soldier 027 also rejected his original claim that he heard several shots from different calibre weapons coming from Chamberlain Street and Pilot Row.
He said today that he believed that report of weapons firing was untrue.
Yesterday, he told the Inquiry that some British soldiers on Bloody Sunday continued shooting and killed civilians, despite hearing the order to stop firing.
