An Official IRA witness told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry yesterday that he still believed that lives were saved by the action of an Official IRA gunman who fired at a British soldier on Bloody Sunday.
Thirteen unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers in the Bogside area of Derry on January 30th, 1972. The paratroopers were deployed into the area during a civil rights march after an Official IRA sniper had fired at a soldier and after two of the 13 civilians who were wounded on the day had already been shot by the army.
The witness also told the 398th day of the inquiry into Bloody Sunday that he witnessed a paratrooper shooting the already wounded Jim Wray from close range as the 22-year-old victim lay on the ground in Glenfada Park.
Known as OIRA 7, the witness, who said he was a 19-year-old active member of the Official IRA on Bloody Sunday, said although his "loyalty to the truth transcends my loyalty to my former comrades and the organisation of which I was a former member", he would not name anyone to the inquiry who was a member of either the Official or Provisional IRA at the time.
He said that during the civil rights march he heard that two people, Damien Donaghy and John Johnston, had been shot and wounded by the army. Several minutes later he heard a single high velocity shot which he assumed was in response to the army fire.
He then saw a group of people pushing and shoving an Official IRA man armed with a rifle.
"I recognised both the person with the rifle and a comrade with him as Official IRA volunteers. I also recognised the rifle as one of ours. It was a sporting-hunting rifle, not a .22 but a solid weapon", he said.
The witness said that he and the two other Official IRA members decided to move the rifle away from the area.
"When I saw the volunteer with the rifle, I realised that it was likely that he was the one who had fired the shot I had heard. This did not concern me, after all, two people had already been shot by the army and there was therefore a good possibility that more people would be shot. If the volunteer had fired at the British army who had fired at Damien Donaghy and John Johnston, it was likely that the soldier would not fire any more, so I rationalised to myself that that shot saved lives rather than caused lives to be lost. I still hold that view now," he told the inquiry's three judges.
OIRA 7 said after he and his two colleagues had put the rifle in the boot of a car parked nearby, he ran with a large group of people into Glenfada Park in an attempt to escape from the advancing paratroopers.
The witness resumes his evidence today.