A former soldier has claimed that Royal Military Police officers made up parts of a statement he gave immediately after Bloody Sunday.
At yesterday's (Tuesday) hearing of the Saville inquiry the former soldier – identified as 005 – said that claims attributed to him in 1972, that he saw a civilian gunman firing shots, were inaccurate.
Days after Bloody Sunday Soldier 005 made a statement to officers of the military police. In it he claimed to have seen a man fire two shots from a pistol.
He said the man had been on the first floor of the Rossville flats complex and that his Paratrooper colleague (Soldier R) had fired a shot back at the man, who disappeared but returned a short time later when Soldier R fired two more shots before the man vanished again.
Yesterday Soldier 005 testified that his 1972 statement was inaccurate.
Questioned by Barry MacDonald QC, representing the majority of Bloody Sunday families, the witness said he had not seen the man with the pistol.
When Mr MacDonald asked if the military police had made the story up, Soldier 005 replied that they had.
He said the statement had been presented to him by the military police and that he had signed it without reading it as he had not realised its importance.
The witness also said that he had seen soldiers moving the bodies of some of the dead from a rubble barricade at Rossville Street.
Many eyewitnesses have claimed that Paratroopers failed to treat the bodies at Rossville Street with respect.
A number of civilian witnesses claimed to have seen soldiers lifting the bodies and throwing them into the back of an armoured car "like carcasses".
Soldier 005 said: "There were four men from mortar platoon carrying the two bodies, I think two at the arms and two at the legs of each body...
"The bodies were laid in on top of the blankets. They were not thrown in. Both bodies were put in the same 'Pig' (armoured vehicle)."
He said he had looked into the vehicle and seen the bodies lying side by side.
Soldier 005's account varied from the evidence of a large number of civilians and two Catholic priests who said the bodies of three young men killed at the barricade – Michael McDaid, William Nash and John Young – had been thrown into the vehicle on top of each other.
