A local businessman has claimed that the most senior police officer in Derry told him the British Army decided to shoot civilians to lure the IRA into a gun battle on Bloody Sunday.
At the Saville Inquiry, Brendan Duddy said that RUC 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 said that Chief Supt Lagan told him 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.
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 the 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 the leadership of both wings of the IRA that all weapons would be removed.
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.
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. When finally completed, the inquiry's total costs are expected to reach £155m.
