A First Aid volunteer told the inquiry yesterday that she saw a paratrooper fire shots into a Saracen armoured vehicle which contained three Bloody Sunday victims, at least one of whom may have shown signs of life moments earlier.
Ms Alice Doherty, who was an 18-year-old Knights of Malta officer with the rank of superintendent, said she had never before given details of the incident to avoid further upset to the families of the deceased.
She said that during the shooting she and a Knights of Malta colleague, Mr Leo Day, were told that there were three dead or injured people inside a Saracen personnel carrier parked in Rossville Street.
They approached the Saracen, where a small stoutish soldier stood by the rear doors. The doors were partially open and she and Mr Day glimpsed three bodies inside, piled on top of one another "like meat".
She added: "I then heard a moaning sound from inside the Saracen. I reached forward and grabbed open the door. Immediately the small soldier kicked it shut . . . I opened the door of the Saracen again. I saw one of the feet of the boy at the bottom give a slight twitch.
"Leo Day saw this movement too. One or both of us said words to the effect that the boy was still alive. The small soldier kicked the door shut again and told us that we were not allowed to look inside. Then he lifted up his rifle and poked the barrel through a flap in the side of the Saracen and fired three shots inside. "He had to hold the rifle up high so that he could aim it downwards. After he had fired he said something like `They're dead now' or `They'll not make any more noise now.' "
Ms Doherty said that Mr Day, who was a commandant in the Knights of Malta, later asked her to leave out any mention of seeing the soldier shoot into the Saracen, or that one of the young men inside it might still have been alive. He said the moan and the movement of the foot could have been a post-death reflex, and that the families had had enough pain already. She agreed that this was a good idea and tried to wipe the incident from her memory. But she now wished to make these details public.
Another witness, Mr Danny Craig, described how 17-yearold Michael Kelly was shot beside him at the rubble barricade on Rossville Street. His face changed colour, his eyes rolled back in his head. "He was dying right in front of me," said the witness. Mr Craig said he was terrified and ran away.
Shortly after, he helped 10 or 12 people to get away from Glenfada Park through a house, as people shouted that the paras were coming in. While in the Glenfada Park or Abbey Park area, he saw a young boy aged about 10 carrying a tray made of a biscuit tin lid which looked to be full of petrol or nail bombs.
"He was crying his eyes out and he said to me; `Mister, what do I do with these?'
"The big guys [paras] were coming across Glenfada Park and I knew that if we had been caught with those bombs we would have been shot dead.
"I was crying at this stage and I kicked the tray out of his hands and away from us and said: `Get your arse out of here.' Whatever was on that tray never got used that day."
Mr Craig said he felt very bad about what had happened to Michael Kelly and the fact that he had not helped him. "I just hope I did some good in helping those people through the house," he said. "I have suffered from stress for the past 12 years, and eczema, and I don't sleep well. I don't just blame Bloody Sunday for my condition, I blame having to live through 30 years of troubles."