Former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath today insisted he was not responsiblefor the deaths of 13 civil rights protesters on Bloody Sunday nearly 31 yearsago.
Giving evidence to the inquiry into the shootings by the British Army in Derry in 1972, Sir Edward also refused to issuea fresh apology for what happened.
Instead, the 86-year-old politician reiterated the "intense regret" heexpressed at the time of the killings and said he stood by the findings of thefirst investigation into the events.
Lord Widgery's 1972 report largely exonerated the paratroopers who opened fireon the protesters, leading to complaints of a "whitewash" by survivors andrelatives of the dead.
Mr Michael Mansfield QC, acting for three of the victims' families, asked SirEdward whether he had ever accepted that all those who died were members of theIRA, as had been suggested.
Sir Edward said he did not accept that they were andstated that he had never asked himself since how the paratroopers came to shootwhat Mr Mansfield called "13 innocent people".
In a heated exchange at the inquiry, sitting in central London, Mr Mansfieldasked Sir Edward: "Do you accept any responsibility for the deaths?"Sir Edward: "No."
Mr Mansfield: "Why is it that you do not accept any responsibility?"
Sir Edward: "Because I had no responsibility for it ... I have expressed myintense regret, which I did at the beginning.
"That continues and I fully appreciate the pain and the grief caused to theirparents and their relatives."
Mr Mansfield suggested that Sir Edward had "shut off or evadedresponsibility" for the events of Bloody Sunday, for which he was ultimatelyresponsible as head of the British Government.
But Sir Edward said that soldiers in the province at that time wereaccountable to their immediate superiors in the forces there and the NorthernIrish administration at Stormont.
He accepted they were then accountable through the General Chief of Staff toWhitehall and ultimately the Government, but that on some occasions, the Armytook unauthorised action.
Mr Mansfield, who argued that Sir Edward's government did haveresponsibilities for security in the country at the time, asked: "The policywithin which the British Army was operating in the north of Ireland was theresponsibility ultimately of the British Government, was it not?"
Sir Edward replied: "No. . . The reason was, as we have learned since, that theaction taken by part of the Army was not in fact agreed or approved by thoseabove them."
This included the conditions under which soldiers could fire weapons inrelation to Bloody Sunday, he told the hearing.
Sir Edward was given time to consider these "unauthorised actions" and isexpected to be questioned on them in detail tomorrow.
PA