THE BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 212: Two police witnesses expressed scepticism yesterday that nail bombs allegedly found on the body of a young Bloody Sunday victim could have been "planted" in his pockets by soldiers.
There has been controversy for many years over the allegation that four nail bombs were found in the pockets of 17-year-old Gerald Donaghy when the car taking his body to hospital arrived at a temporary detention centre beside Craigavon Bridge.
Shortly after he was shot in the Bogside, he had been taken into a house, examined by a civilian doctor, and several people searched his pockets for evidence of his identity.
These witnesses say they found no nail bombs in his pockets and that they could not have missed such bulky items if they were present. But after the car taking him to hospital was stopped at a checkpoint and driven by a soldier to the detention centre, several RUC officers claim to have seen the bombs on his person.
Donaghy's family and Bloody Sunday campaigners have always claimed the bombs were deliberately placed on the body. Although a British army medical officer said he examined the body at the detention centre and noticed nothing unusual, Lord Widgery's now-discredited inquiry report in 1972 concluded the "plant" theory was "mere speculation" and that "on balance of probabilities" the bombs were in the youth's pockets throughout.
Yesterday, Ms Clara Hamilton, who was a woman RUC constable at the time, was asked about her Widgery Inquiry testimony that she was stationed at the detention centre on the day and, after a soldier drew her attention to an area of the body in the car, she found a round object in the pocket, and the soldier shouted it was a bomb.
Asked by Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the tribunal, if she thought it conceivable somebody in the army might have planted nail bombs, she said: "If anyone had planted bombs on that body at the reception centre, they were taking an awful chance that they would not be spotted by either army or police at that time. It would have been a foolhardy thing . . ."
A retired RUC inspector, Mr Harry Dickson, also said he saw an object which he took to be a nail bomb in the jeans pocket of the body in the car. When Mr Clarke put it to him that one possibility was that, after the medical officer examined the body, one or more bombs were placed on it, the witness said: "No way . . . that is not possible."
The inquiry began hearing the evidence of the photographer, Mr Gilles Peress, who took many dramatic photographs of casualties during the shooting on Bloody Sunday. Employed by the Magnum international photo agency, Mr Peress told how he peered around a corner and saw a paratrooper crouched and holding a rifle.
"The soldier made eye contact with me," said Mr Peress. He said he held his cameras up above his head, stepped out and shouted "Press". The soldier then fired a shot at him.
The inquiry continues today.