In a document described as "remarkable and curious", a British soldier describes his colleagues shooting unarmed civilians and killing a wounded man on Bloody Sunday.
Soldier 027, who was attached to the Anti-Tank Platoon of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, also says his colleagues used their "personal supply" of dum-dum ammunition, and he claims his statement to the Widgery inquiry was fabricated by officials.
Counsel to the tribunal Mr Christopher Clarke QC read out extensive passages of the document, which he said was submitted in "the Irish Government dossier" but was also in circulation from other sources.
The document, Mr Clarke said, appears to be a typed resume of an interview, possibly tape-recorded, with the soldier in the early 1970s, and it is a continuous narrative beginning with his arrival in Belfast in 1971 and leading up to Bloody Sunday.
Soldier 027, described in the document as a radio operator, was aged 20 at the time of Bloody Sunday. In it he says: "One night in January 1972, I was sitting with the rest of my muckers of the Anti-Tank Platoon in the barracks when our lieutenant came in and informed us that we were due for an operation in Londonderry the following day.
"He said that the heart of Derry had been bombed out. Several hundred soldiers had been hospitalised and that not one arrest had been made. We knew that the Creggan estate was an IRA fortress, conning towers, machine-guns and barbed wire, as well as landmines guarding its approaches.
"The people of the Creggan had not paid rent and had highjacked (sic) all their food for several years.
"As I looked at my friends I could see that after all the abuse and nights without sleep, frustrations and tension, this is what they had been waiting for. We were all in high spirits and when our lieutenant said `Let us teach these buggers a lesson; we want some kills tomorrow', to the mentality of the blokes to whom he was speaking this was tantamount to an order (i.e. an exoneration of all responsibility)".
He describes the journey to Derry, taking up position near William Street, and "being filled with an indescribable feeling as I heard the awesome fear of hatred and defiance which a riotous crowd of 15,000 can summon." There was excitement in the air, the narrative says, and "I know I speak for the majority when I say that the common feeling among us was `please let us be called in, we will go nuts if we miss a chance like this'. In retrospect I can see that what followed was only a natural conclusion to the foundations and dictates of fate laid down over the previous months."
On the order to move in, they swept into Rossville Street "with visions of Gross Deutschland". About 100 yards short of the crowd, his colleagues F and G opened fire, and he saw two bodies fall at the barricade.
"I raised my rifle and aimed, but on tracking across the people in front of me could see women and children, although the majority were men, all wildly shouting, but could see no one with a weapon so I lowered my rifle.
"I can best describe my feelings as amazed, although this is very inadequate. I remember thinking, looking at my friends who had now grown to half a dozen in a line side by side, `Do they know something I do not know? What are they firing at?' " He could see members of another platoon opposite also "pumping off rounds at quite a rapid rate - in the initial 30 seconds I would say that 100 rounds were fired at the crowd".
After "an eternity of timeless moments and sights" an officer's voice on the radio ordered a ceasefire. At this stage "blokes were getting in while the going was good" and "people with gleeful expressions" were running up from the rear and pushing their way through to get into the firing line.
He says that he and four others, H, E, G and F, then ran into Glenfada Park and saw a group of some 40 civilians running in an effort to get away - "H fired from the hip at a range of 10 yards. The bullet passed through one man and into another and they both fell, one dead and one wounded. H then moved forward and fired again, killing the wounded man . . . E shot another man at the entrance to the park . . . a fourth man was killed by either G or F.
"I can no longer recall the order of fire or who fell first, but I do remember that when we first appeared, darkened faces, sweat and aggression, brandishing rifles, the crowd stopped immediately in their tracks, turned to face us and raised their hands. This is the way they were standing when they were shot. Men and women whimpering and crying and trembling with fear with their hands on their head . . . "
He describes the ill-treatment of people arrested, and goes on: "When we finally got into the Pig, everyone including myself was laughing and joking on an intense wave of excitement as we worked out how many rounds we had fired.
"Several blokes had fired their own personal supply of dumdums. (Soldier) 635 fired 10 dum-dums into the crowd, but as he still had his official quota he got away with saying he never fired a shot in the subsequent investigations. This happened with several people in my vehicle.
"H fired 22 rounds but was stupid enough to boast about it within the sergeant's hearing before he could spread them out - i.e., add a few to each of our tallies."
Later he says: "When the Widgery tribunal got under way, this was a personal affront and the common feeling among us was `who the hell's side is the British government on?' "
When army investigators spent time going over aerial photographs with them, trying to establish which shots had been fired by whom and from where, "we were all grinning at each other and drawing lines haphazardly all over the place with the result that the authorities finished up with a series of photographs of sophisticated looking spiders' web which bore no relation to fact."
When interviewed by officials for the Widgery tribunal, he says he "rattled off everything I had seen and had done. The only thing I omitted were names and the manner in which people had been shot. Apart from that I told the truth.
"Then, to my utter surprise, one of the doddering gentlemen said: `Dear me, Private 027, you make it sound as though shots were being fired at the crowd. We cannot have that, can we?' He then proceeded to tear up my statement.
"He left the room and returned 10 minutes later with another statement which bore no relation to fact, and I was told with a smile that this was the statement I would use when going to the stand.
"What a situation: the Lord Chief Justice for Great Britain, the symbol of all moral standing and justice, having his minions suppress and twist evidence - with or without his knowledge, who can tell? I was amazed. Who was right and who was wrong - beyond any individual's judgment and certainly mine."
He says he subsequently had many conflicting and contradictory attitudes: "It certainly would not have been right to have offered up the small group of soldiers responsible as a sacrifice and thereby bring the entire army into disrepute . . . "The actions of my friends on Bloody Sunday which at first astonished me became more and more justified in my eyes."
Mr Clarke then read from a statement made to this tribunal by Mr John Heritage, then a senior legal assistant at the Treasury Solicitor's department, who is thought to have been one of the officials who interviewed Soldier 027 before the Widgery hearing.
In it, Mr Heritage describes 027's allegations, if intended to describe his interview with him, as based on falsehood and as "a total fabrication". He says: "I have never torn up or substituted a statement in the way described at any time in my career."
He says he was still a relatively junior officer in the department at the time, "and at such a level it would be impossible to fabricate evidence in the way described without the knowledge and connivance of others who were involved in the inquiry".
He adds: "In fact, the Treasury Solicitor's inquiry team were concerned only to get at the truth. We were not concerned to protect the interests of any of those involved and, in particular, we were very much at arm's length with those acting for the army."