The British Army operation on Bloody Sunday was an assault on the participants in a civil rights march, it was claimed today.
Mr Arthur Harvey QC, counsel for many of the families of those killed and injured, said the intention of paratroopers on the day was to do more than arrest civilians.
"This operation in fact, as it took place on the ground, was more than a simple arrest operation...it was an assault upon the persons who had participated in this march," he alleged.
But Colonel Derek Wilford (69) the commanding officer of paratroopers on the day, said his men simply carried out an arrest operation on the day 13 civil rights marchers were shot dead in Derry on January 30th, 1972. A 14th man died later.
"My soldiers were trained to carry out an arrest operation in the best possible way. You know, I cannot describe it in any kind of detail, but the training of the soldiers was in fact to make an arrest operation, to catch people, arrest them and put them under restraint," Col Wilford said.
Col Wilford earlier said he had never considered over the last 31 years whether the army had done anything wrong on the day 13 civil rights marchers were shot dead. He said neither he, nor his men, did anything improper.
In his sixth day of testimony at Methodist Central Hall in London, Col Wilford told the inquiry his soldiers intended to arrest as many rioters as possible on Bloody Sunday.