A former British army information chief yesterday apologised at the Bloody Sunday inquiry for saying in the hours after the killings that four of the dead civilians were on a wanted list.
Mr Maurice Tugwell, then colonel general staff (information policy) at Headquarters Northern Ireland, also said in a statement to the inquiry that he went as an observer to the march in Derry on January 30th, 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed people.
Mr Tugwell told in the statement how he heard automatic gunfire from around the Rossville Flats. He said he gave a radio interview at 1 a.m. the day after the killings.
"During the course of the interview I stated that four of the civilians who were dead were on a wanted list. Later, I am not sure when, I discovered that the allegation that four men were on a wanted list could not be sustained."
But they could not put out a news release to correct this since, from February 1st that year until the publication of the Widgery report - the first inquiry into the killings - there was a blackout on them saying anything at all about the event.
Mr Tugwell said he wanted to check if there were "intelligence traces" on any of the dead.
"I would have obtained the information about intelligence traces orally, either by phoning and asking, or by being given it by one of the Ops Room staff officers who obtained it for me.
"On reflection, I think the latter more likely, because if I had spoken directly to Intelligence, I would surely have remembered who gave me the information."
A statement was drafted for the Widgery inquiry confirming that, though four of the civilians had "traces" from Intelligence, and would have been put aside for questioning if they had been arrested, they were not people who were actively being sought, he said.
"I apologise for this error. It was a mistake." In his evidence, Mr Tugwell said that when he heard firing at the scene he could not tell in which direction it was taking place.
"I simply heard the machine- gun or the sub-machine gun being fired and I had no idea which way it was being fired," he said. But there was "no question" at all about it being an automatic weapon, he said.
He was asked about an interview he gave to Channel 4 in which he referred to "two Official IRA gunmen who were in the Rossville Flats and they were the people I think I heard start the whole shooting off with this long burst from a gun".
Mr Tugwell told the inquiry: "The point I was making to the interviewer was that there is a lot more to be found out about Bloody Sunday than had been found out then."
The hearing was adjourned until today.