The British secret service will have to justify the deletion of passages from documents relating to the activities of an informer who supplied allegedly important information about Bloody Sunday, the inquiry was told yesterday.
The chairman, Lord Saville, said that if a Public Interest Immunity (PII) application was made to have the cuts stand, the tribunal would require to see the removed material.
This is what the tribunal has done on all the PII applications to date, he said: "The track record is that we are, of course, provided with a full text, even in a PII application".
The inquiry was hearing legal argument on an application for anonymity on behalf of the informer, identified only as Observer B, who is also seeking to have his appearance concealed from tribunal lawyers while giving evidence, and to have his witness statement heavily edited to protect his identity.
During the hearing, the statement of a British security service agent called "James" was read, in which he asserted that this informer was a unique source of information about Derry.
"James" says that a former British army commander, Maj Gen Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, once admitted to him that the army had no sources at all in Derry. "Observer B pinpointed just about everything we knew about Londonderry," states "James".
Mr Alan Roxburgh, one of the tribunal's counsel, said medical certificates had been received showing that Observer B would not be fit to come to the Guildhall. Accordingly, the tribunal had already agreed, on medical grounds, to permit him to give evidence by video link.
Mr Roxburgh also said Observer B had contacted the inquiry of his own volition. Observer B's solicitors, however, have asked for his evidence to be given by audio link only, and they have supplied an edited, or redacted, version of his witness statement with cuts which they propose should be made.
Documents obtained from the British security service, and heavily redacted by it, are also attached to this statement, and Mr Roxburgh said neither the inquiry nor Observer B has yet had sight of the redacted passages. Counsel said that these red-actions would require to be justified if they were to stand, and he understood there was likely to be a PII application on that by the security service.
Counsel read the witness statement by Observer B, most of which the inquiry has heard at an earlier stage, in which he describes seeing a group of men "drilling" in the Glenfada Park area during the week before Bloody Sunday.
The informer also describes relaying to his handlers, "James" and "Julian", details of conversations with other "subsources" about things they claimed to have seen in the Bogside around Bloody Sunday.
Statements to this inquiry by "James" and "Julian" were also read yesterday. "James" said his work was concerned exclusively with Northern Ireland. It involved the recruitment and handling of informers.
He had been based in various safe houses "around the province" and would return to London every few days to file reports. "Julian" was a fellow security service officer who had come out to assist him after he had been in Northern Ireland for two years.
"Julian" said he remembered that Observer B "was treading very dangerous ground into both camps of the sectarian divide and that looking after him was difficult . . . Observer B was, in my opinion, an extremely brave fellow." Counsel for Observer B, Mr Mukul Chawla, said his client was in a peculiarly vulnerable position, and if any image of him was seen by more people than was absolutely necessary it would add to the risk he faced.
Opposing the application, Ms Patricia Smythe, counsel for the next-of-kin of several Bloody Sunday victims, said it was accepted that Observer B had reasonable fears, but she submitted that the proper course in dealing with a witness whose evidence was of crucial importance was to ensure that he was provided with full and proper protection - "in order to give his evidence openly . . . and to enable full challenge to be made of any matter which is in dispute".
Counsel pointed out that in the numerous supergrass trials in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, "all those supergrasses were given full and proper protection and all of them gave evidence without anonymity and without screening from anyone". She added that a witness was much more likely to give false testimony if he knew that the risk of exposure was limited. If his identity was unknown, members of the public would be unable to provide information about his character or reputation, or to challenge his account.
Counsel said that Observer B was no ordinary witness - "He is an informer. We do not know whether he is a civilian informer or . . . an agent who was inserted into the Bogside in 1972 . . . We do not know whether or not he was involved in criminal activity, terrorist activity . . .
"Even in 1972, this man could have given information to the security service which could have been a load of nonsense, it could have been a pack of lies, yet no one would have known, not even security service." Other counsel for the relatives also opposed the application.
Mr Barry Macdonald said granting it would almost certainly impede the tribunal's search for truth. This man should be exposed to proper scrutiny in terms of his reliability.
Mr Macdonald also suggested that the tribunal was not properly in a position to give a complete assessment of the associated documentation, because parts of it had been deleted unilaterally by the security service.
Lord Saville said he had no reason to suppose that the tribunal would not be supplied with the full texts, even if there is a PII application. If the tribunal was shown that material and took the view that it cast an entirely new light on the present application, "then . . . we would probably reopen the matter".
The tribunal may give a ruling on the issue today.
Yesterday the tribunal granted an application for three former RUC Special Branch officers to be screened from public view when they come to give evidence.
Counsel for the chief constable, Mr Stephen Ritchie, told the inquiry that the names of these former officers would be made available - the application was for screening of their faces only.
He said they would be considered "prestige targets" for terrorists, and all had a history of being threatened or targeted in the past.