Former soldier 'would have shot at Army'

Soldiers shot dead civilians during Bloody Sunday

A former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier has told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry that he would have shot at the army if he had had a gun on that day.

Tony Martin, 63, an organiser of the civil rights march that ended in bloodshed in Londonderry on 30 January 1972, said that he was so angry when he saw what had happened that he tried to get rifles to attack the Army.

Mr Martin was giving evidence to the tribunal which is investigating the events of Bloody Sunday when British soldiers opened fire on marchers at a civil rights demonstration killing 13 civilians. Another man died later.

The witness, who served for 12 years in the Royal Navy and one year in the UDR, said the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, of which he was a member, was assured by both the Official and Provisional IRA that there would be no weapons at the march.

I was so angry that I said I would take one of the rifles myself and do somethinge

Tony Martin

"In order to make sure the march would be peaceful, we contacted the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA," he told the inquiry in a statement.

"They gave us the assurance that there would be no IRA flags or guns."

Mr Martin said he had heard after the event that some IRA members carried sidearms for "personal protection" but he said they were not weapons which anyone could have used to attack soldiers.

After coming under fire himself and helping move the bodies of some of the dead and injured shot by the soldiers, Mr Martin said he agreed to help a junior IRA volunteer, known to him only as John, to collect some guns from a car parked in Glenfada Park North.

Guns had been removed

He said there were many gun-laden IRA cars routinely parked around Derry in that period to stop weapons from being seized in Army raids.

He said: "He asked me if I would help him go and collect the guns.

"I was so angry by that point that I said I would take one of the rifles myself and do something."

Soldiers were around the car when they went to it, so they decided to withdraw, he said.

He said he later learned that the car had been emptied of the guns before the march began.

First aider 'felt helpless'

Earlier on Thursday, a first aider told the inquiry that he felt helpless and prayed for his life as gunfire rang out around him.

Paul McLaughlin, a 21-year-old member of the Derry Unit of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps at the time, tried to treat dying Hugh Gilmore but had to take cover as shots were fired.

Sheltering behind a telephone box, he watched as Bernard McGuigan walked to assist Paddy Doherty lying dying between Block Two of Rossville Flats and Joseph Place.

"The shooting at this time was still intense and before he had gone more than five steps I saw him fall to the floor, he said."

He added: "My first aid training did not prepare me for having to deal with fatal bullet wounds and I felt totally unable to help."

Establishing facts

The inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair after a campaign by families of those killed and injured.

The new inquiry has been sitting in public in Derry's Guildhall for more than a year and is expected to run for another two years.

Witnesses to the inquiry are immune from prosecution on issues arising from their evidence.

It is aimed solely at establishing the facts of what happened.