A man who was shot on Bloody Sunday today denied that he admitted being a gunman that day to a British soldier.
Mr Joe Friel, who entered the witness box at the Saville Inquiry today, said the allegation, made by a soldier known as 104, was "absurd and entirely untrue".
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The soldier, a member of the Royal Anglian regiment, claimed Mr Friel made the admission when he got into a car ferrying him to hospital in the aftermath of the killing of 13 Derry men on January 30th 1972.
The soldier claimed he said to Mr Friel of his gunshot wound: "That's what you get for playing with guns," and that Mr Friel replied: "I won't do that again."
However, Mr Friel said in his written statement, made public as he took the stand: "This is a complete fabrication."
He also rejected an assessment made by an RUC officer who interviewed him in hospital in the days after Bloody Sunday.
The police sergeant observed in an official record: "Friel is a quietly-spoken intelligent young man and obviously involved in the civil disorders.
"He is the man from whom the army obtained a verbal admission of using/having a gun ... and I am convinced that he did admit this to the soldier."
Mr Friel stated: "In my view, his comments heap insult on to injury. He had no grounds whatsoever for his conclusions.
"I do not know how he had the audacity to say that I was obviously involved in civil disorder. At no time did he question me about the allegation made against me by the soldier.
"Although he was aware that I had my clothes with me in hospital, as one of the police officers moved the bag to sit beside the bed, he did not ask to remove them for forensic examination.
"Apparently he thought he was dealing with a self-confessed gunman and yet at no time did he place me under guard or remove me to an army hospital or forensically swab my person."
Mr Friel was shot in Glenfada Park North, where two of the dead were gunned down by the British army.
PA