SAVILLE INQUIRY: The officer who commanded the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment in Derry on Bloody Sunday 31 years ago said yesterday his soldiers did what they could to "avoid unnecessary injury".
Lieut Col Derek Wilford, whose troops shot dead 13 unarmed civilians and wounded 13 others when they opened fire on an illegal civil rights demonstration in the Bogside area in January 1972, was responding to an allegation that there was no structured military plan on the day to avoid endangering innocent bystanders.
The claim was put to the retired Parachute Regiment officer by Mr Arthur Harvey QC, who represents most of the families of the Bloody Sunday victims. On the 320th day of the inquiry, the witness said he was "just amazed" that Mr Harvey should suggest to him that the safety of the public "did not matter" to the soldiers. "We were always conscious in fact of the risk to civilians. . .and we took whatever steps we could to avoid unnecessary injury."
Col Wilford also told the inquiry he initially thought that five people had been killed.
Asked by Mr Harvey if he was shocked when told 13 people had been killed, he replied: "No, I was not any more shocked than by the fact that we had killed five."
Q - "Were you surprised?" A - "I think 'surprise' would be the wrong word. I was just waiting for all the evidence.""Did you find it unbelievable?" "No, I did not find it unbelievable."
The witness agreed with Ms Eilís MacDermott QC, who represents the family of victim Paddy Doherty, that in a media interview after Bloody Sunday, he said something like "every Catholic has links with a republican organisation".
He said he was trying, in the interview, to explain what terrorism was.
"Terrorism must in fact create its own water in which it can swim freely. What was happening, in my view, in Ireland was that the IRA, using terrorist tactics first of all, terrorised its own people and so it was inevitable, whether you liked it or not, that you admitted to be republican.
"Of course they probably did not need to admit they were republican. Because of that, they were republican. That is all I was saying and I was not saying that just because you are a Catholic you were a member of the IRA or you were a republican," he added.
The inquiry continues.