Ex provo refuses to say if McGuinness gave Bloody Sunday orders
A former Provo today refused to confirm whether Martin McGuinness had given him orders not to take action on Bloody Sunday, claiming it could put his family’s lives in danger.
PIRA8, giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry, said he had been told by a senior IRA man before the march of January 30, 1972 that there was to be no attack on the Army.
Asked by Counsel to the Inquiry whether it was the Sinn Féin chief, then second in command of the Provisionals in Derry, that gave the order, he replied: “I am not prepared to name any member of the Provisional IRA on the grounds that it could endanger my life and the lives of my family.”
Mr McGuinness has given evidence to the Inquiry that he was the second in command of the Derry Brigade on Bloody and had told volunteers that there was to be no activity on the day of the march.
PIRA8 told the Inquiry that he was Section Leader of the Bogside unit on Bloody Sunday and had been ordered to patrol the Brandywell area while the march was taking place.
“I met with the three volunteers who were to be on active duty with me that day. Our section in the Bogside/Brandywell used to have five or six people in it but there was only four of us in the one car patrolling on that day.”
He confirmed to the Inquiry that they had been given allocated with four rifles and a pistol, which were kept in the boot of the car.
While on patrol he said they saw cars driving away from the Bogside.
“These were not cars of IRA volunteers but of ordinary civilians who were trying to get out of the area. They told us that people had been shot in the Bogside.”
He said that while he went with two colleagues to find out what was happening, they bumped into four people from the Official IRA.
“I was aware that there had been an incident a few weeks previously when the Official IRA in the Creggan had captured a soldier and had let him go.
“I can remember being angry and thinking that the fact that they had released the soldier meant that that soldier might have been in the Bogside on this day killing people.
“I had an altercation with one of the Officials and I decked him,” he added.
The former paramilitary said they went to a derelict house at Stanley’s Walk used as the IRA’s headquarters.
“People had come there for instructions as to what to do. There was confusion as to how many people had been shot but there was talk of there being upwards of 20 people shot.
“We were told that the instructions were that nothing was to happen and that we would be contacted in due course,” he added.
