A lawyer representing Derry's Bloody Sunday family has accused a former member of the Parachute regiment of perjuring himself in 1972.
Barry MacDonald QC told the former soldier – identified as Soldier 007 – that he committed perjury by signing a witness statement claiming that three men had been rioting when he knew this was not the case. The military witness denied the claim.
Soldier 007 told the Saville Inquiry yesterday that he entered Derry's Bogside from William Street and along Chamberlain Street.
While walking along Chamberlain Street after hearing up to four shots, he entered a house where he arrested a number of people.
"My next recollection is arriving at the arrest centre with the arrestees... I remember being told to stand next to certain individuals to have my photograph taken and then the arrestees statements were taken," he said.
He also claimed he did not see any prisoners being mistreated. A huge number of other witnesses including military and civilian witnesses have told the inquiry of alleged mistreatment of prisoners.
Questioned by Mr MacDonald, Soldier 007 admitted that he signed three witness statements on Bloody Sunday stating that he saw three prisoners throwing stones at the military. He also admitted that he now knew the statements not to be true.
Tribunal chairman Lord Saville reminded the witness that in May 1972 he told the military police that he did not see the people throwing stones.
Lord Saville said: "Mr MacDonald's question to you is surely when you signed this statement, which says in it that he (the prisoner) threw stones at the military, you were saying something that you knew to be untrue."
The witness said he must have believed the statement to be true on Bloody Sunday.
But Mr MacDonald suggested to Soldier 007 that he and other soldiers arrested people they had not seen rioting, took them to Fort George army barracks and picked them out at random. The witness denied this.
Mr MacDonald said: "The reason you all did that was out of a sense of, perhaps, loyalty to other members of the Parachute regiment and also a desire to establish that the people that had been arrested had been involved in rioting of a kind that may have given rise to the trouble that led to the deaths of people."
The witness replied "no".
