Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness denied today that he planned to attack British troops on Bloody Sunday. Mr McGuinness told the Saville Inquiry today that IRA members had been ordered not to attack troops so the march could pass peacefully.
"In the most vehement terms I can muster I refute the entirety of those allegations," said Mr McGuinness, when questioned about accusations from security force informers that he had planned nail bomb attacks and had fired the first shot on the day.
On the first of two scheduled days in the witness box at Derry's Guildhall, Mr McGuinness said he had been the IRA's second-in-command in Derry on Bloody Sunday, and became "officer commanding" within two weeks. He told the inquiry a "war situation" between the British Army and the IRA existed in his native Derry at the time, and in the preceding months a number of British soldiers had be killed by "very capable" IRA snipers.
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"If these people had been intending to kill a British soldier... they could have done so quite easily, and I think that gives the lie to the nonsense that has been peddled down the decades that the British Army were fired on," he said.
"The British Army know they were not fired on by the IRA, their military commanders know they were not fired on by the IRA, their political masters know that the British Army were not fired on by the IRA."
Earlier Mr McGuinness's refusal to answer some questions about his IRA career - including the location of houses where IRA men met or stored weapons - prompted a rebuke from British judge Lord Saville, who is chairing the inquiry.
"I feel I can't answer that question, because there is a republican code of honour - the people who allowed us to use their house are people who would have placed great faith in the IRA members using the house," said Mr McGuinness.
In response Lord Saville said he took the reply to mean Mr McGuinness regarded his code of honour as overriding the desire of the relatives of those killed and injured to see the full truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday come out. Thirteen people, all unarmed Catholic civilians, were killed when the soldiers opened fire in the staunchly nationalist Bogside area of Derry. A 14th victim later died from wounds sustained.
The British Army maintains it had only fired at people with guns or bombs.
The inquiry will finish hearing evidence in December and Lord Saville's report is expected around the end of 2004.