The officer in overall command of the British Army's operations on Bloody Sunday has been defending the role of the Parachute Regiment.
However Brigadier Pat MacLennan told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which is sitting in London, that the tactics used by the first battalion of the regiment on the day had been the responsibility of its commanding officer.
Brigadier MacLellan commanded the overall British Army operation on Bloody Sunday from Ebrington Barracks in Derry.
On the first day of his evidence to the inquiry, he said it had been decided to launch what he described as an arrest operation against rioters. He said that the first battalion of the Parachute Regiment had been allocated for the task.
Brigadier MacLellan, who is now 77, said 'one para was an experienced good battalion who were used to doing that sort of thing'. British soldiers killed thirteen unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday.
But when questioned more closely by counsel to the inquiry, Christopher Clarke QC, about who had decided how the arrest operation was to be carried out, Brigadier MacLennan said tactics had been very much up to the commanding officer of the battalion because he could see what was going on on the ground.
That officer was Colonel Derek Wilford who is due to appear before the inquiry in London in the new year.
