Mr Martin McGuinness tonight declared he was "sceptical and suspicious" about the Saville Inquiry's ability to discover the truth about Bloody Sunday.
Delivering the annual Bloody Sunday memorial lecture in the city, Mr McGuinness, the Sinn Féin Minister for Education, claimed attempts were being made to divert attention away from those responsible for the military operation that day.
"After 29 years the British establishment is attempting to blame everyone, except of course their politicians and their generals.
"For the last 29 years they have blamed the civil rights movement, the people of Derry, the dead of Bloody Sunday.
"And now very late in the day, in an obvious act of desperation, they are trying to place the responsibility for Bloody Sunday on me."
The Inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, has been shown security service documents from 1984 quoting an agent known as "Infliction" as saying that Mr McGuinness fired the first shot in Derry's Bogside on January 30th 1972.
The tribunal, which has been sitting in public in the city's Guildhall since March, has so far failed to acquire a statement from Mr McGuinness explaining what he did that day and last month refused him legal representation at the hearings unless, and until, he came forward.
Tonight Mr McGuinness again maintained that he intended to play his part in helping establish the truth about Bloody Sunday.
"There are important legal matters to be dealt with. I will be eager, when that work is completed, to provide my evidence to the Inquiry."
PA