The Bloody Sunday Inquiry/Day 362: A former British soldier told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry yesterday that he saw a gunman being shot in the vicinity of a rubble barricade around which five of the 13 unarmed civilians were killed by paratroopers on January 30th, 1972, died.
The now retired soldier, who was a private in the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday, told the 362nd day of the inquiry into the killings that the gunman, who was armed with a rifle, was, along with another man, "crawling flat on their bellies in a sort of leopard crawl".
The witness, known as Soldier 032, said he did not see the gunman making any offensive move with his rifle and his impression was that the gunman was attempting to move from behind the barricade to reach more secure cover.
Soldier 032 told the inquiry he and several other soldiers were positioned behind a low wall, about 80 yards from the barricade at Rossville Street, in the Bogside area of Derry.
He said he had been ordered into the area following the arrival of civil rights marchers there.
He added that he felt "just a healthy fear". He said he could hear gun shots and baton rounds being fired from his left at the rubble barricade.
"As I looked towards the rubble barricade, there were two men crawling on the ground... The man crawling behind was trailing a long implement which I certainly thought was a rifle.
"The weapon was held at his right hand side as he went away from me. It was close to his body as though he was trying his best to conceal it, but could not," he said.
He added that he did not feel threatened at the time and he believed the two men were attempting to get into a doorway in the Rossville Flats complex.
He heard shots being fired. "I did not see shots fired, but the body jerked twice," he said.
The inquiry continues.