MoD denies blocking Derry tribunal

Fourteen civilians died after being shot on Bloody Sunday

The Ministry of Defence has rejected claims that it has frustrated the work of the Bloody Sunday inquiry in Londonderry.

The families of the 14 unarmed demonstrators who died after being shot by British paratroopers at a civil rights march in Derry's Bogside area on 30 January 1972 have expressed anger over what they see as the ministry's failure to co-operate with the inquiry.

Their criticism has focused on the loss by the army of several of the rifles used by the soldiers during the shootings.

They have pointed to the disappearance of hundreds of photographs taken by the army during the operation, missing documents and the absence of a full-time legal team acting for the MoD at the public hearing.

As the inquiry re-opened on Monday after a Christmas recess, lawyers for the MoD told the tribunal that claims made by the families were "absurd".

Ian Burnett QC said "Herculean" efforts had been made to find the relevant material and that nothing had been held back.

He said suggestions that individuals had deliberately hidden or destroyed documents were simply not true.

Destroyed evidence

Mr Burnett said that the reality was that a considerable amount of material about Bloody Sunday had been destroyed over the years, because it was felt to be no longer of any use.

He added that the government and the MoD would continue to co-operate with the inquiry.

Mr Burnett said those working in the MoD's Bloody Sunday Unit - set up within the department to assist the inquiry - as being "of the highest calibre and integrity".

He said: "It is unthinkable that they would work to deny this tribunal material that would assist it in its search for the truth."

'No case to answer'

The criticism from bereaved relatives and the wounded had a "ritualistic" ring to it and the claims of criminal obstruction had been levelled "carelessly" and without regard to the enormous assistance provided by the team of five full-time civil servants, Mr Burnett added.

On the subject of the ministry's presence at the inquiry, he said a representative attended the hearings full time but maintained it was "not a party with leave to appear" like the bereaved and injured and the individual soldiers.

"Both the groups in those examples have a case to put and a case to meet in connection with Bloody Sunday. The MoD of today has no case to put to or to advance before this tribunal nor does it have a position to defend," he said.

The inquiry proceedings are continuing with civilians giving more evidence.

Shayler allegations

The inquiry re-opened after the Christmas recess against the backdrop of allegations in a Sunday newspaper by a former British Secret Service agent which casts doubt over an informer's claims that Martin McGuinness fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday.

The army has always maintained that they were fired on before opening fire in the Bogside.

David Shayler: "Direct clash"

Writing in Sunday's Observer newspaper, ex-MI5 officer David Shayler said the informer was "terminated" shortly afterwards when MI5 chiefs were made to "look stupid" having relied on faulty information he had supplied.

In April, a document from an informer code-named Infliction said Mr McGuinness, now the education minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive, appeared to have it on his conscience that he had fired the shot which led to the civilians being killed.

Mr Shayler said that Infliction's information was taken seriously because he appeared to have particularly good access to the IRA's northern command.

"Then, one day, there was a direct clash between Infliction's reporting and another source.

"Infliction was supposedly the reliable source and MI5 went with his version, only to be made to look stupid.

"As a result it ceased to use Infliction as an agent and labelled the intelligence he had provided as coming from a 'source whose reliability is being reassessed'."

Mr Shayler queried why evidence from Infliction was being used during the tribunal proceedings.

He also said he knew "many MI5 officers who could provide the information which I now hope to give to the Saville inquiry".