George Jackson
A former paratrooper who claims that he fired at two nail bombers and two gunmen, hitting three of them, in Derry on Bloody Sunday, told the Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings yesterday that he no longer remembered the circumstances in which he discharged a total of 13 shots on the day.
Giving his evidence in front of over 100 relatives of the 13 civilians shot dead by paratroopers on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, the former paratrooper, known as Lance Corporal F, said he now had no memory of the four occasions on which he fired his SLR rifle after almost 200 members of the Parachute Regiment were deployed into the Bogside area of the city during a civil rights march.
Lance Corporal F is known to have killed Michael Kelly on Bloody Sunday. The teenager was shot in the abdomen as he stood near a rubble barricade in Rossville Street.
The bullet, which was recovered from his body, was forensically linked to Lance Corporal F's rifle.
However, the former soldier told the inquiry yesterday that he "cannot now recall" any of the shooting incidents he was involved in on Bloody Sunday which he mentioned to the original Widgery Inquiry into the killings.
He told counsel to the inquiry, Mr Christopher Clarke QC, that he also had no recollection of any of the 108 shots fired by paratroopers on January 30th, 1972. He agreed with Mr Clarke that Bloody Sunday was "a pretty dramatic day" and added that he was being truthful when he said he could remember practically nothing about the day.
In his evidence to the Widgery Inquiry, Lance Corporal F said that the man he fired at close to the rubble barricade (Michael Kelly), was about to throw what appeared to have been a nail bomb. However, Lord Widgery, in his findings, said he was not satisfied that Michael Kelly was a nail bomber.
In his 1972 evidence, Lance Corporal F said he also shot a gunman in the vicinity of the Rossville Flats Complex and added that he shot a second nail bomber in Glenfada Park, where three people were shot dead and four others wounded. In his findings, Lord Widgery said the shootings in Glenfada Park "bordered on the reckless".
Lance Corporal F told the inquiry's three judges yesterday that although he believed the Bogside area of Derry was under IRA control, there was not a belief among the paratroopers on Bloody Sunday that they "had to sort the situation out".
The witness said he no longer had any memory of his 1972 evidence in which he claims that he heard two nail-bomb explosions, that he came under sniper fire and that he fired at two nail bombers and two gunmen.
The witness denied that there had been "a conspiracy of silence" among the paratroopers to cover up the shootings.
Lance Corporal F resumes his evidence today.