A former BBC television journalist who gave evidence to the inquiry yesterday rejected a suggestion from counsel that he had been regarded as "an intelligence asset" at the time of Bloody Sunday.
The inquiry was told, after some delay and behind-the-scenes consultations, that the reason Mr Peter Stewart had been designated only as "Observer A" in a statement he made to Treasury solicitors in 1972 was because threats had been made to him following his news broadcast on Bloody Sunday.
Mr John Coyle, for the family of Barney McGuigan, had asked Mr Stewart if he had any knowledge as to why he had been designated Observer A. The witness replied: "Yes, and the tribunal has knowledge of it."
When Mr Coyle said: "I'm afraid, Sir, we do not have knowledge of it", the chairman, Lord Saville, asked what the relevance of this question was. Mr Coyle said the witness was "the only journalist who appears under a pseudoynm in 1972".
Lord Saville again asked about the relevance of the question, and after a further exchange he said: "We really must try and concentrate on the matters at hand. I have no idea at the moment why this gentleman was called Observer A or whatever it was. I can discover it."
Lord Anthony Gifford QC then asked the witness: "Is the reason you were designated Observer A because you were regarded as an intelligence asset?" The witness replied: "Absolutely not." He said there was a reason which had been disclosed to the inquiry.
The chairman again intervened to prevent counsel from pursuing the subject, but said that he would make inquiries and if the matter was relevant it would be made public, "subject to any compelling reason to the contrary".
Lord Gifford also indicated that he wished to ask why, in Mr Stewart's 1972 statement, there was no reference to his status as a BBC reporter.
After an adjournment, Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the tribunal, said that Observer A was a designation given to Mr Stewart by the Widgery inquiry in 1972. It had no connection with the notation of Observer B given by this tribunal to another witness (whose identity is the subject of a public interest immunity application by British ministries).
Counsel put it to Mr Stewart that the reason he was "anonymised" in the statement for Widgery, and why no description was given of his professional position in the statement, was because of threats made to him, apparently in consequence of the news bulletin on Bloody Sunday.
Mr Stewart said that was correct, but when further asked if he knew from whom those threats emanated, he said he did not. However, counsel then referred to a letter written by Mr Stewart's solicitors to the Treasury department in February 1972 which had mentioned his anxieties about attending the Widgery inquiry.
Mr Clarke said the letter had indicated several reasons for this anxiety: "Firstly, the approaches that the IRA made to him while he was still in Ulster; secondly, the threats which the two wings of the IRA had made against his life; thirdly, the anonymous telephone calls he had at his house on his ex-directory number, and lastly the publicity he had received in at least one London evening newspaper".
At the end of his evidence yesterday, Mr Stewart made a brief statement. He said that when he left the army barrier to go to the BBC studio on Bloody Sunday he knew of just two, possibly three, casualties.
"By the time that broadcast was made and seen in Londonderry, the people in the area knew that the death toll was much higher. Therefore the anger and the threats made might have been the result of a misconceived notion that the BBC was trying to whitewash the army's activities of that day. It might have been quite an understandable reaction between the broadcast and what was known on the ground." The inquiry continues today.