A paratrooper called to the aid of a wounded man and woman on Bloody Sunday said "Let them die" and soldiers later arrested every man present, it was claimed today.
Ms Anna Nelis also told the Saville inquiry the 23 men taken prisoner from her house in Derry 29 years ago were guilty of no crime and were simply seeking refuge from the shooting outside that day.
Thirteen men were fatally wounded in the Bogside on January 30 1972 after members of 1 Para moved in the wake of a civil rights demonstration, under orders to arrest rioters involved in earlier clashes with troops containing the march.
Two of the injured, widowed mother-of-14 Ms Peggy Deery and Mr Michael Bridge, were carried to Ms Nelis's home for first aid.
She told day 103 of the public hearing in Derry's Guildhall how she ran outside and asked local chemist Mr Otto Schlindwein to help and then telephoned for an ambulance from another house.
Fearing for Mrs Deery's condition she approached two soldiers outside and stated: "I explained about the wounded woman and asked if they could get an ambulance for her.
"I asked the soldiers to come into the house so they could see for themselves how badly wounded the woman was so that they would see that she desperately needed an ambulance."
One was the soldiers was "hyped up" and used obscene language towards Ms Nelis and others, she said.
Inside the house he said of the wounded woman: "Let the whore bleed to death," she claimed.
Shown the injured man in the backyard he was alleged to have commented: "Let them all die."
After the two shooting victims had been stretchered into an ambulance, three or four soldiers, including the first two raided the house and took every man there prisoner, including her brother and brother-in-law.
"The soldiers took the arrested men out of the house and back into Chamberlain Street. They were then marched up Chamberlain Street with their hands folded behind their heads like criminals."
Questioned by barrister Mr Paddy O'Hanlon, acting for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, Ms Nelis (who was 38 on Bloody Sunday) said she provided statements to NICRA because she was incensed by what had happened in her house that day.
PA