ULSTER INQUIRY Evidence by paratroopers

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32861, 9 March 1972, Page 15

ULSTER INQUIRY Evidence by paratroopers

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) COLERAINE, March 8. A British paratroop lieutenant admitted yesterday that he had not been speaking the truth when he told millions of television viewers that he himself had seen gunmen firing during Londonderry's “Bloody Sunday.”

The unidentified officer was giving evience on the twelfth day of the inquiry being held in Coleraine by the Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Widgery) into the deaths of 13 demonstrators in Londonderry on January 30.

The 13 were killed tn clashes involving British troops in the aftermath of a banned civil rights march. The demonstrators allege that the troops fired on them without provocation; the Army maintains its men were first fired on by gunmen.

A lieutenant giving evidence yesterday said that a commercial television interviewer had asked him whether he had seen any gunmen firing. “I said I had seen an incident, but described an incident one of my soldiers had reported to me,” he told the tribunal.

Earlier, an officer identified only as a paratroop major had told the tribunal that his men came under fire as soon as they got out of their armoured cars in the Bogside area of London-

derry. His soldiers had been pursuing rioters into the Bogside and were about to make arrests when they came under about 15 rounds of lowvelocity fire. For about the next 10 minutes he heard continuous firing. A paratroop corporal who said that he had been ordered to shoot any nailbombers, admitted firing at a man he assumed was light-

ing such a bomb; the man had brought an object from behind his back and appeared to strike a match on a wall. A second paratrooper said that he had shot at the same man, who was holding a black cylindrical object. Another soldier told the tribunal that he fired six shots at a man holding what appeared to be a mediumcalibre rifle. He thought he had hit the man, but could not shoot again because his line of fire became obstructed by people.