A journalist who refused to name three IRA men at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry tonight escaped being forced to reveal his sources.
Mr Kieran Gill had argued that professional ethics and a risk to his life stopped him from disclosing their identities to the tribunal probing the shooting of 13 civilians in Derry in January 1972.
After the debate was reduced to one Official IRA man which the reporter claimed to have confronted with allegations he shot a civilian on the day, inquiry chairman Lord Saville ruled there was no need to override his human rights.
He told his lawyer: "Your client does have a subjective fear, it is reasonably or objectively justified and there is, as matters stand, no compelling reason for requiring Mr Gill to name this particular source."
The decision contrasts with the threat of being held in contempt facing two Channel 4 journalists unless they reveal army sources to the tribunal.
Mr Gill told the hearing that as a former Derry-based reporter with the now defunct Irish Press he formed a theory about how Mr Alex Nash - father of William Nash, one of those shot dead - was wounded by a low velocity bullet.
A member of the Provisional IRA tipped him off about an Official IRA man who fired a revolver from the flats on Rossville Street, he said.
Claiming to have gone to the paramilitary in the company of fellow journalist Mr Peter Pringle, he accused him of shooting Mr Nash.
The journalist said the Official IRA man was "horrified". "He admitted that he had fired a revolver around the door of the Rossville Street flats," said Mr Gill.
But when questioned by inquiry lawyers, he refused to disclose the names of either man, or to give information on another Provisional IRA man seen loading guns into a car in the Creggan area on Bloody Sunday.
Mr Gill, who now lives in Australia, told how he had gone to his Official IRA source last week seeking his permission to name him. "He made it clear that I was under no circumstances to be released from my journalistic duty of confidentiality in relation to him," he said.
But a lawyer for the Nash family pointed out Mr Pringle, who has given evidence to the tribunal about his work for the Sunday Times Insight team investigating the shootings, made no mention of confronting the Official IRA man.
Mr Kieran Mallon told him: "At best you are mistaken and at worst hopelessly confused with regard to the recollection of this conversation." Mr Gill reiterated his belief that his account was accurate.
Earlier the Inquiry heard how soldiers went into a morgue to take photographs of the Bloody Sunday dead hours after the atrocity.
A lawyer for several families of those killed by paratroopers in Derry in January 1972 outlined the "highly irregular" move during evidence from a former pathologist who performed autopsies on some of the victims.
Mr Seamus Treacy QC said: "Not only did they gain access to the mortuary, but whilst there they then proceeded to take a number of photographs including photographs of (victim) Willy McKinney".
Asked if anyone had told him the British army had insisted on gaining access early on Monday morning, Dr Derek Carson, deputy state pathologist for Northern Ireland in 1972, said this was the first he had heard about the incident. He confirmed it was normal practice for police to take pictures of the dead. Dr Carson said had never known anything like this to have happened before.
"The bodies would normally be kept secured in the form and position in which they were admitted to the mortuary until the team had gathered for the autopsy - that would be the pathologist, the scenes-of-crime officer and the police," he said.
Mr Treacy showed the inquiry sitting in Derry's Guildhall a statement provided by soldier 223. Having gone into the morgue to take pictures, the soldier said: "All the deceased were in the cabinets and the attendant pulled them out one by one".
Seeking to find out if a 13-year-old had been killed, the statement claimed soldiers needed photos for "continuity of evidence purposes".