Doubt over colonel's Bloody Sunday claims
A senior British army officer may have been mistaken when he said that former SDLP leader John Hume informed him about terrorist activity in the Bogside, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was told today.
Lord Saville, the inquiry chairman, said that a telephone call from the retired Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, had thrown doubt over the claims made yesterday by Colonel Roy Jackson, the commanding officer of one of Northern Ireland’s resident battalions on Bloody Sunday.
Yesterday Col Jackson, then the commander of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, claimed that Mr Hume and a priest had approached him with information about “arms or explosives or something” in August 1971.
Lord Saville today said the inquiry “suspects” the incident Col Jackson was referring to was when Dr Daly, a local Bogside priest, and Ivan Cooper, then a Stormont MP, told the authorities of an unexploded bomb in a playground.
The well-known incident is recalled in Dr Daly’s book Mr Are You A Priest, the inquiry was told.
Col Jackson thought that Mr Hume, who was then the Stormont MP for Foyle, had told him about the find because it was the night Mr Hume had been arrested at a protest against special powers legislation. Mr Cooper was arrested at the same protest.
The IRA were reluctant to defuse the bomb because they believed the army were staking out the area.
Lord Saville told the inquiry: “These two (Mr Cooper and Dr Daly) went to the police and offered to defuse the bomb, which they later did.
“Bishop Daly has kindly confirmed that account to the solicitor to the tribunal in a telephone conversation today.”
Mr Cooper has said a colonel from the Royal Anglians was at the meeting.
Lord Saville continued: “Thus it may be, although at present we do not know that the incident to which Colonel Jackson is referring is in fact this incident.”
He said the inquiry would be taking steps to see whether “as we suspect may be the case” that Col Jackson may have been mistaken about Mr Hume’s presence at this meeting.
Mr Hume, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble for helping to broker the Good Friday Agreement, described Col Jackson’s allegations as “absolute nonsense“.
Mr Hume, who is in the US on a lecture tour, said he would not have known the whereabouts of any arms dumps.
