Soldiers who fired "live" rounds on Bloody Sunday were considered "top of the league" when it came to attractive targets for terrorist reprisals, the High Court in London was told yesterday.
But that did not justify their names being kept secret at a public inquiry, said Mr Christopher Clarke QC, the lawyer appearing for the tribunal, which is conducting a fresh inquiry into the day 27 years ago when troops opened fire in Derry and 14 civilians were killed.
The tribunal, chaired by Lord Saville, is facing a legal challenge by 17 soldiers, mostly retired members of the Parachute Regiment, to its decision in May that they are not entitled to anonymity, unless individuals can show special reasons.
Yesterday, the second day of the hearing, Mr Clarke agreed with a judge that the British security service assessments placed the men "at the top of the league" of terrorist military targets, and the fact that most were retired added to their vulnerability to attack.
He conceded it was they against whom "anger or worse could develop" if their identities were known.
But Mr Clarke argued that the tribunal had been entitled to decide that the need for "a full and open inquiry" outweighed the risks to the men and they should be named in public when they came to give evidence at hearings, due to begin in September.
It was a "stark" choice, but one open to the tribunal to make and one with which the court should not interfere, he told Lord Justice Roch, sitting with Mr Justice Maurice Kay and Mr Justice Hooper.
On Thursday the court was told the tribunal's decision to name the men amounted to a deliberate decision to expose former soldiers "to a risk of injury or death".
But defending the tribunal, Mr Clarke said it had faced "a stark choice" between two "irreconcilable" conflicting public interests, the need for a full and open public inquiry, as opposed to concerns about the security and safety of the soldiers.
It had to be made after a court ruling quashed as "flawed" the tribunal's initial decision last December to publish surnames only, which would have given the soldiers partial anonymity.
"There was no way of satisfactorily reconciling one [interest] to the other. One had to give way to the other," said Mr Clarke.
Lord Justice Roch asked Mr Clarke whether the tribunal accepted that those who had opened fire on Bloody Sunday were "at the top of the league when it comes to attractive targets".
Mr Clarke replied: "Yes".
The tribunal had accepted that was what the threat assessment report was saying.
Mr Clarke said he accepted that, if the soldiers were compelled to give evidence with their full names revealed, they might say they could not recollect what happened on Bloody Sunday.
But it was hoped that the inquiry itself would inspire confidence.
The hearing was adjourned until Monday.