Bloody Sunday Inquiry: A former battalion commander in the Ulster Defence Association confirmed yesterday that he was among the paratroopers deployed into the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday, when members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 Catholic civilians and wounded 13 others.
Known as Soldier 203, he told the Saville inquiry into the shootings on January 30th, 1972, that he was also an associate of John McMichael, the deputy leader of the UDA who was killed in an IRA under-car explosion outside his home in Lisburn in December 1987.
The former UDA member first gave evidence to the inquiry last March, but was recalled yesterday after it became known that he was jailed for his part in a UDA shooting in 1977.
He told the inquiry that he was involved in neither orchestrating nor covering up violence against Catholics and said he only joined the UDA three years after Bloody Sunday and left it in 1977.
Soldier 203 said yesterday that he shot a man in the leg inside a UDA social club in 1977. He pleaded guilty to what he called his "act of great stupidity" and was then jailed.
"I served the first part of my sentence in the Maze Prison but became disillusioned with the strategy of the UDA and resolved to have no further involvement with paramilitary organisations," he told the inquiry's three judges.
"During the period of my service in the British army, I had no involvement whatsoever with any paramilitary organisation. I was a professional soldier. I carried out my duties to the best of my ability, regardless of which section of the community we were dealing with at any given time," he added.
He said he left the British army in 1975 and decided to join the UDA for "social progress" and for "protection from the IRA".
He denied an allegation by Mr Barry MacDonald QC, who represents most of the Bloody Sunday victims' families, that he joined the UDA "to get an opportunity to kill or get others to kill Catholics". He admitted he possessed a loaded pistol "to defend myself".
Soldier 203 said when he became a battalion commander of the UDA, he worked to "stop the tit-for-tat killings and try and get an organised body for the eventuality if there was ever a situation where we were handed over to the Republic of Ireland".
Another soldier who was an army sniper on Bloody Sunday told the inquiry that he shot an IRA gunman in the chest from a distance of 250 metres.
Private AD was a Royal Anglians Regiment sniper positioned in a derelict building above the Bogside. He told the inquiry that he saw the gunman beside the Bogside Inn bar, firing from an American Garrand rifle.
The inquiry continues.