Evidence of firearms link discredited, says counsel

Forensic evidence used to link six of the 13 unarmed civilians who were shot dead by British army paratroopers on January 30th…

Forensic evidence used to link six of the 13 unarmed civilians who were shot dead by British army paratroopers on January 30th, 1972 to the possession of firearms had been discredited, counsel to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, Mr Christopher Clarke QC, said yesterday.

Mr Clarke also told the inquiry's three judges that it could not be right to conclude that "one or more victims were unlawfully killed by one or more specified soldiers".

The inquiry into the shooting of 27 civilians in the Bogside area of Derry during a civil rights march 32 years ago resumed in Derry yesterday, four months after the oral evidential phase of the hearings ended last February.

In the interim, the parties directly involved, including legal representatives of the families of the deceased, of the wounded and of the paratroopers, submitted their final written submissions to the inquiry, which is chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate alongside Judge William Hoyt from Canada and Judge John Toohey from Australia.

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This phase of the inquiry, during which the written submissions will be debated, is due to last two weeks. It will be followed next October by Mr Clarke's closing statement.

Mr Clarke pointed out that the Widgery Inquiry, which was held in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday, had concluded that six of the fatalities had either been armed or in close proximity to a gunman. "The evidence that led to that conclusion is discredited," he told the inquiry.

Meanwhile, Mr Arthur Harvey QC, who represents the families of 10 of the Bloody Sunday victims, said the singular fact that the forensic evidence linking six of the victims to firearms had been discredited made the present inquiry worthwhile.

"The position of the families we represent has always been based upon certainties: the certainty that those who were shot and injured were innocent of any wrongdoing; the certainty that there was no justification in any action that they were involved in for shooting them and the fact that there was never any objective justification for their being shot because of the actions at or close to them; the certainty that they were not shot by mistake, that they were shot deliberately."

Mr Harvey said he accepted that none of those shot on Bloody Sunday had been shot by British soldiers positioned on the walls of Derry overlooking the Bogside. "That was one of the justifications that was offered by a number of politicians for granting this inquiry, but I respectfully submit that the work of this inquiry effectively establishes, as far as the families that I represent, to their satisfaction, none of their relatives were shot from the walls."

The inquiry continues.