Witness describes seeing his dead brother from flat

A witness told the inquiry that from his mother's home in Rossville Flats in Derry he could see the legs of a casualty projecting…

A witness told the inquiry that from his mother's home in Rossville Flats in Derry he could see the legs of a casualty projecting near a telephone box on the street below, and found out later that it was his brother who had been shot dead.

Mr Bernard Gilmour described first watching from the window as the youth, Jackie Duddy, was shot. He said soldiers who entered the car park were firing rifles from the waist.

He described seeing a civilian gunman in the area, holding a handgun which he fired around a wall without taking aim. He said he knew who this was, and in reply to Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the tribunal, he said he had written the man's name on a piece of paper.

When this paper was handed to counsel, Mr Clarke said it was the same man as had been identified by a previous witness, Mr William Harley.

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Mr Gilmour described how he went to the morgue at Altnagelvin Hospital and identified his brother, Hugh, who was 17. He was later at the Widgery tribunal. "I saw Soldier F giving evidence. He was the soldier who shot Hugh. He said that Hugh was at the phone box with a gun, shooting at him.

"I listened to his evidence and found it very frustrating. I thought to myself at the time: `I'm not listening to this crap'. I would never listen to that again and I am never prepared to go back to court."

Mr Colm O Domhnaill, who was 25 and a final-year university student on Bloody Sunday, described being struck by the heavy military presence in the buildings off William Street as the march passed there.

Soldiers were behind various buildings between William Street and Great James Street, "almost on every building that they could find a ledge".

The first shots he heard were those in the William Street area which wounded a youth (Damien Donaghy), and after this he heard talk of someone getting a rifle to fire back, but people were saying: "For God's sake, no, don't get a gun out," and it did not materialise. The inquiry continues today.