A former BBC journalist who reported paratroopers met "a fusillade of terrorists' fire" on Bloody Sunday today denied he was "an intelligence asset" at the time.
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The allegation was made at the Saville Inquiry against Mr Peter Stewart, who gave a statement to the original Widgery Inquiry in 1972 under the codename "Observer A" and with no reference to his status as a reporter.
Lawyers acting for relatives of the 13 men and youths shot dead on January 30th, 1972, were prevented from pursuing the subject by tribunal chairman Lord Saville, who said he was not persuaded it had anything to do with the inquiry.
But Mr Stewart, who has covered 11 wars in his career, later confirmed at the hearing he was granted anonymity at the time because of threats to his life over his reporting of the tragedy on the BBC 6 p.m. news that night.
Earlier, when asked by Lord Gifford QC, acting for the next-of-kin of Mr Jim Wray, if the designation was "because you were regarded as an intelligence asset?" he replied: "Absolutely not."
Mr Stewart said in evidence to the tribunal, sitting at the Guildhall in Derry, the term "fusillade of terrorists' fire" in his report was "unguarded", "emotional" and "inaccurate" and not based on anything he had witnessed.
But he said he still viewed the killings during a civil rights demonstration in Derry's Bogside as being the result of an army response to "a deliberate attempt to overthrow the authority of the civil power".
Counsel to the inquiry Mr Christopher Clarke QC asked: "How did you come to describe the paratroopers as being met with a fusillade of terrorist fire if you had neither seen nor heard that?"
Mr Stewart said: "That was an unguarded statement, it was not accurate. As I have said, I think `fusillade' was an exaggeration."
Mr Clarke asked: "Had you ever been told by the army by the time you filed this report that they had been met by a fusillade of terrorist fire?"
Mr Stewart answered: "I do not remember."
PA