For soldiers connected to Bloody Sunday, Derry is the most dangerous environment into which they could possibly be taken, the inquiry was told yesterday.
This assertion was made by lawyers for several hundred military witnesses, as the inquiry heard legal submissions regarding the venue to be designated for hearing soldiers' evidence. Lawyers on behalf of Bloody Sunday victims strongly oppose the soldiers' submission that they should not be required to testify in Derry, and that the inquiry should sit in London for that section of its proceedings. A possible compromise, put forward for consideration by the tribunal itself, is that the inquiry might sit in Derry with the soldiers giving evidence via videolink from elsewhere in Britain. This is opposed, however, by both the soldiers and the families. A confidential communication from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to the tribunal's solicitor, circulated yesterday with substantial sections blanked out, said the overriding concern was the threat from dissident republicans. There had been six major attacks against security forces in Derry since last Christmas, it pointed out. The risks involved in transporting military witnesses to and from the Guildhall were clear, the MoD asserted. Dissidents were in possession of rocket launchers, and other types of attack which might be attempted included close-quarter assassination, remote controlled bombs, or sniper attacks. The MoD said the only way to ensure the security of vulnerable people was by the weight and scale of the available protection. "That would probably do no more than raise the temperature locally at a time when feelings are in any case likely to run high", the MoD letter said.
In a submission on behalf of more than 400 soldiers and former soldiers, Mr David Lloyd Jones QC, pointed out that many of the soldiers would not have returned to Derry since 1972. It was an environment which they genuinely regarded as hostile - "There have been occasions when questions by counsel for the soldiers have been greeted by laughter from the public gallery." Counsel submitted that to require the military witnesses to attend in Derry would be unlawful and procedurally unfair because of the dissident threat, the threat of public disorder, the intimidating environment in which they would have to give evidence and the practical prejudice they would suffer. He quoted threat assessments and other material placed before the tribunal by the MoD, and he put his case on the legal basis of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
For another group of soldiers, Mr Gerard Elias QC said that many of these were not even soldiers - "they are now people largely in their 50s and 60s, many, if not most, with families and extended families. They are what might reasonably be called everyday people". Mr Michael Lavery QC, for a number of victims' families, said his clients did not believe there was any real threat to the soldiers. They believed this threat had been "talked up" by people "who can only be described as the comrades in arms of the soldiers". Lord Anthony Gifford QC, for the family of James Wray, submitted that the desire of the soldiers not to come to Derry "derives from a wish not to be discomfited or embarrassed by having to account for their actions before the very people who most suffered from them".
The inquiry will sit again tomorrow.