Major controversy erupted around the Bloody Sunday inquiry yesterday when it emerged that British security and intelligence agencies have offered to supply uncorroborated summaries of security files held on civilian witnesses.
Relatives of Bloody Sunday victims and their lawyers expressed grave concern at the proposal that material based on phone taps, RUC records, Special Branch and informers' reports could be introduced against anyone giving evidence at the inquiry.
Several lawyers immediately advised clients not to give evidence until the issue was clarified, and told them to seek independent legal advice on the implications for their individual rights under European and British human rights legislation.
With the witness list for the inquiry in imminent danger of drying up, the tribunal hastily scheduled for next week a special session to hear arguments and submissions from all sides on the controversial proposal.
The British security and intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Defence will be represented by counsel at that hearing on Thursday. Some local lawyers, however, were already alleging privately yesterday that the new development represented a tactical ploy by British military and security interests to undermine and even prematurely terminate the inquiry.
Others described it as an attempt by those agencies to secure unlimited licence to discredit the evidence of civilian witnesses, whose graphic accounts of the killings on Bloody Sunday have, practically without exception, accused the soldiers of murdering innocent and unarmed people.
The tribunal has made no decision on whether it will accept the proposal that intelligence summaries should be admissible, and if so, how it should be categorised or limited. Next week's interlocutory hearing will inevitably see heated exchanges, but there were indications yesterday that the victims' families will reject the proposal out of hand, regardless of what their lawyers advise or the tribunal decides.
"There are 500 witnesses going in there who have come forward because we asked them to come forward," said the brother of one of the Bloody Sunday dead. "We can't ask them to subject themselves to smear tactics based on telephone tapping and touts' information."
The crisis arose after details became known of a letter from the inquiry's solicitor, Mr John Tate, to lawyers for the interested parties. The letter, dated May 9th, said inquiry staff had "discussed with the police and other agencies the way in which intelligence information might be provided to the inquiry . .."
This would take account, the letter said, of PII (Public Interest Immunity) considerations and "the need to avoid the tribunal being side-tracked into issues not directly concerned with Bloody Sunday, and the associated delay to the progress of the inquiry that would be likely to occur".
This was a reference to the applications already made by the British Home Secretary and the Defence Secretary for Public Interest Immunity certificates in relation to Secret Service (Security Service) material containing allegations, in particular, against Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein.
The material, said to have been gathered during the debriefing of an agent codenamed "Infliction", included a claim by the agent that Mr McGuinness had admitted firing shots at an early stage in events on Bloody Sunday.
The PII application seeks to claim privilege, in effect, for the full material and the real identities of Infliction and other agents and informers. There was speculation yesterday that the tribunal has agreed to consider the new proposal by the security agencies as a possible way of circumventing the dilemma it faced over the PII applications.
If the tribunal was willing to admit the proposed intelligence summaries on civilian witnesses, including Mr McGuinness, then the PII applications would go by default and prolonged legal appeals and delays might be avoided.
There was no official comment from tribunal sources yesterday, but a provisional witness list was issued for next Tuesday, when hearings are due to resume. The witnesses include former Westminster MP Ms Bernadette McAliskey (Devlin).
Correspondence from the inquiry's solicitors to lawyers for the Bloody Sunday families reveals the nature of the "intelligence summaries" which would be provided in regard to civilian witnesses. Samples provided of such summaries include items such as "attended PIRA/SF meeting", "associating with PIRA ex-prisoners", "involved in possible punishment attack", "employed in PIRA-run bar" and even "attended Bloody Sunday commemoration march".
Relatives of the victims pointed out yesterday that the main purpose of the commemoration marches was to demand the setting up of the present inquiry into the truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday.
According to the correspondence seen by reporters yesterday, the nature and content of the intelligence summaries could be based upon reports from agents and informers, information in files relating to applications to visit republican prisoners in jail, records of RUC interviews of suspects, Special Branch reports on movements of individuals through ports, and "technical" reports based on interception of telephones and eavesdropping.
The security agencies propose to provide the inquiry with summaries of the information, but not with the underlying material on which they are based.