Republican News · Thursday 30 January 1997

New evidence destroys Widgery facade

Paras lied to Tribunal

A new report* which examined the statements made by British soldiers on the evening of Bloody Sunday and their evidence to the Widgery Tribunal has found that ``the soldiers' evidence is unreliable - you can't trust it''.

The report, compiled by law professor Dermot Walsh for the newly formed Bloody Sunday Trust, effectively dismisses the British government's Widgery Tribunal into the killings,

d in a devastating comment in the summary to the report Walsh states, ``it beggars belief that the Tribunal should proceed to base its findings so heavily on the premise that the evidence given by the soldiers at the Tribunal was honest and reliable. The immediate result of this approach is totally to discredit the bulk of the findings of Widgery. They are based on evidence which is fundamentally flawed''.

The Paratroopers' evidence, which was available to both Widgery and the Council for the Tribunal, was withheld from the legal team representing the families of the dead and wounded and only became available through the Public Records Office in the summer of 1996.

The British soldiers' evidence, therefore, was never tested in open court nor were they questioned about huge discrepancies in their stories. According to Walsh, Widgery and the Council for the Tribunal, representing the interests of the state, was to find out the facts of Bloody Sunday, restore confidence and integrity in the rule of law and whose overriding objective was to produce and test the evidence, ignored the discrepancies in the paratroopers evidence and ruled in their favour.

The summary adds, ``the Tribunal proceedings and Report have been interpreted in the light of these newly released documents and the results deal a devastating blow not just to the credibility of the Tribunal's findings but also to the whole manner in which they were reached'' and adds, ``the documents reveal that for almost every soldier who fired one or more shots on Bloody Sunday there are substantial material discrepancies between the account offered in the statement made on 30/31 January and the version given in evidence to the Tribunal. The nature and extent of these discrepancies are such that they also give grounds for charges of murder or attempted murder''.

Speaking to An Phoblacht Walsh revealed that the paras were ordered to cock their weapons before they went through the barricades into the Bogside. He believes the paratroopers were ``trigger happy''. and that one para in particular, soldier H, who fired 19 unaccounted shots (almost 20% of all the rounds fired by paratroopers on the day) ``went berserk''. Walsh said it was important to look at Soldier H's evidence to the Tribunal and pointed out, ``he fired 19 shots at someone who didn't exist. Where did these shots go?''

In the report Walsh says, ``In his original statement H described a virtual battle scene as the paras moved along Rossville Street ... they were continually fired at, stoned and nail-bombed and acid-bombed. None of his colleagues described the scene in such dramatic terms and there is no photographic or other independent evidence to support this version''.

Initially H claims to have fired his 19 unaccounted rounds in Glenfada Park then in his evidence to the Tribunal he says while travelling along Rossville Street in an armoured vehicle he located a gunman in a toilet window and fired his 19 rounds. Walsh says that even the Secretary to the Tribunal was wary of the reliability of H's evidence and in a memo to Widgery wrote that H's evidence may have been ``wished upon him from the start'', that H was briefed on what to say. Despite this, neither Widgery nor the Council for the Tribunal closely examined H's evidence or attempted to find out where the 19 shots went to.

*The Bloody Sunday Tribunal: A Resounding Defeat for Truth, Justice and the Rule of Law

Related Articles:

Bloody Sunday remembered in London

Civil rights 25 years on

Aftermath of Bloody Sunday in the 26 counties

Survivors tell their stories

More extracts from Eyewitness Bloody Sunday

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