A spokesperson for the Bloody Sunday inquiry said yesterday that there been no approach from a man purported to have been a member of the Provisional IRA during the January 1972 killings of 13 civilians in Derry's Bogside, to make a formal statement to the inquiry.
The Sunday Tribune newspaper claimed at the weekend that a statement from the former Provisional IRA member was on the way within the next two to three weeks.
However, at the resumption of the inquiry's hearings in Derry's Guildhall yesterday following the summer recess, the inquiry's spokesman said they knew nothing about the veracity or otherwise of the report. "There has been no direct approach to the inquiry from this person," the inquiry's spokesperson said.
The North's Education Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, is the only person so far who was a member of the Provisional IRA in Derry 30 years ago who has made a statement to the inquiry, outlining in detail the activities of the IRA immediately before, during and after the Bogside killings.
In his statement, Mr McGuinness said he was the Provisionals' second-in-command on Bloody Sunday and denied firing the shot which precipitated the killings.
It was also confirmed yesterday that a former leader of the Provisional IRA in the Maze Prison submitted a statement to the inquiry over 18 months ago.
Mr Raymond McCartney, who was jailed for the 1977 murder of Mr Jeffrey Agate, the managing director of the Du Pont factory in Derry, became the IRA's O.C. in the Maze Prison.
A former hunger striker, Mr McCartney is expected to stand for Sinn Féin in the next Assembly elections.
Mr McCartney has so far not been called to give evidence before the inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate. It is believed he stated in his written submission to the inquiry that he joined the Provisional IRA as a result of what he'd witnessed on Bloody Sunday, when he was 16.
It also emerged yesterday that the transfer of the inquiry's proceedings to Central Hall in Westminister, London, on September 24th, will cost an estimated £15 million.
Almost 300 British soldiers who were on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday will give their evidence in London, as will Sir Edward Heath, who was British Prime Minister at the time of the killings, and a former Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington.
At yesterday's hearing, a former RUC Scenes of Crime Officer who was on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday, said there was a risk that the bodies of some of the victims could have been contaminated with firearm residues. Mr John Montgomery, who gave his evidence from behind a screen, told the three judges that between July 1971 and July 1972, he had attended about 150 post-mortems.
"I was 23 years old and I recall it as an awful time. I was regularly pulling bodies out of hedges and cars and dealing with men wearing hoods with gunshots in the back of their heads", he said.
The witness said he was on duty at the mortuary in Altnagelvin Hospital after the killings.
"It was in pandemonium, there was no room for all the bodies and the civilians were there looking for missing relatives and friends. No one knew what was going on."
Mr Montgomery said a decision was made to delay the post-mortems until the day after Bloody Sunday because of a shortage of pathologists.
The bodies of the victims, some of which were placed on the mortuary floor because of inadequate space, were locked overnight in the room.
The witness, who took swab tests of the hands of five of the dead, said when he gave his evidence to the original Widgery Inquiry several weeks after Bloody Sunday, the possibility of cross-contamination of the tests was raised.
"I recall an allegation that soldiers touching the hands of the bodies would have contaminated them.
"I agree that there is always a risk of such contamination, particularly when some of the bodies were brought to the mortuary in the back of a Pig [security forces' vehicle], which would be covered in firearm residues.
"The possibility of contamination can never be ruled out, but all I can say is that I followed the procedures in place at the time. I did everything I could, given the level of knowledge in 1972, to avoid contamination", he said.
The inquiry continues.