Witness tells inquiry of 'bomb tray'

Thirteen people died in Bloody Sunday shootings

A boy was seen carrying what appeared to be a tray of nail or petrol bombs at the scene of two of the Bloody Sunday killings, the Saville Inquiry has been told.

Danny Craig told the inquiry at the Guildhall in Londonderry that he kicked them from the child's hands.

Lord Saville of Newdigate is heading the inquiry to examine the events of 30 January 1972.

Thirteen Catholic men were shot dead by British soldiers during a civil rights march in the city that day. A 14th person died later.

Mr Craig, who was 25 in 1972, said he was by a fence in Glenfada Park North - where Jim Wray and William McKinney died - when he saw a boy aged about 10-years-old.

Whatever was on that tray never got used that day

Danny Craig

He stated: "He was carrying a tray made of a biscuit tin lid which looked to be full of petrol or nail bombs, although it may not have been as I have never seen a nail bomb and so do not actually know what one looks like.

"They looked like fireworks. He was crying his eyes out and he said to me, 'Mister, what do I do with these?'

"I was crying at this stage and I kicked the tray out of his hands and away from us and said, 'Get your arse out of here'.

"Whatever was on that tray never got used that day."

Meanwhile, the inquiry is trying to trace a former IRA member to see what evidence he may have about the day's events.

The inquiry heard that Shane Paul O'Doherty had previously said that he joined the Provisional IRA in 1970 and started exploding bombs that year.

On Tuesday, a witness who said that he was on the civil rights march with Mr O'Doherty said that he had not discussed with him what the IRA did or did not do that day.

Lord Saville: Heading inquiry

Mr O'Doherty, said Mr McAteer from the witness box, "probably spared me a lot of the detail about what he was or was not involved in".

Mr McAteer said he saw three bodies on the rubble barricade across Rossville Street - where Michael McDaid, John Young and William Nash died - and saw the dying Michael Kelly being carried to the gable wall.

He also claimed to have seen a young man - possibly another of the dead, Kevin McElhinney - making a "long painful crawl on his elbows towards the Rossville Flats, chips and bullets coming off the pavement around him".

He said he saw three men from his own group run in the opposite direction across Glenfada Park North "not doing anything other than trying to make their escape".

'Frightening'

"I heard three shots, bang, bang, bang and two just dropped, one after the other. I do not know what happened to the third one," he said.

"It was very frightening. It was like a grouse or a turkey shoot; the men were running at speed but still got shot."

The inquiry has been sitting in public in Derry since March 2000.

Military personnel are expected to begin giving evidence to the inquiry early next year.

In August, the inquiry team ruled that British soldiers must go to Londonderry to give their evidence.