A former IRA gunman attempted to shoot a soldier to save the lives of civilians on Bloody Sunday, he told the Saville Inquiry tonight.
The ex-paramilitary, giving evidence at the Guildhall in Derry, said he fired at a soldier on a roof in the belief that he had already wounded two civilians.
"I would have to consider how I would have faced the families of people who may have been shot by that soldier the next day and told them I could have stopped it but I did not fire," he said.
The former Official IRA man, known to the Inquiry as OIRA1, said he and a colleague, OIRA2, had arrived at Columbcille Court to retrieve a defective weapon when he decided to fire a retaliatory shot.
Under questioning from counsel to the Inquiry Cathryn McGahey, he denied they had brought the rifle to the location with the purpose of mounting an attack on the Army.
"The position we were in would not be considered a sniping location. I would never have picked a place guarded only by half-inch planks.
"If someone had fired from there and planned to fire from them, they were taking their lives in their hands. They were dead, there was no cover." OIRA1 told the inquiry he heard three high velocity shots before firing the rifle.
"I am sure in my mind that I understood that two people had been shot at this time and the shots I had heard fired was the Army shooting them," he told the tribunal.
The inquiry is investigating the events of January 30th, 1972 when 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry.
PA