An Italian photo-journalist who took some of the most shocking pictures of Bloody Sunday told how he crossed the border late the same night because he feared his material would be seized by British security forces.
Mr Fulvio Grimaldi, who claimed he was shot at twice by soldiers that day, also challenged the validity of a blurred photographic image introduced at the inquiry as possibly showing the outline of a civilian gunman in the Bogside.
A freelance photo-journalist working for the Italian magazine, Jiorni, and ABC News in January 1972, Mr Grimaldi took dozens of photographs of the events, including images of the body of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy being attended by Father Edward Daly.
He admitted some of his written accounts and statements about the events were emotional but defended their accuracy.
"I do not believe there is any such thing as a truly objective journalist," he said. "You either criticise one side or the other.
"I am an individual with feelings and I side with the people I feel are unjustly treated."
Mr Grimaldi described how, after narrowly escaping shots fired through the window of a flat, he and a colleague, Ms Susan North, had gone to a house where it was understood there were local militants who "were in charge of the Derry area".
He was told soldiers had been instructed over the army radio to apprehend an Italian photographer and his colleague or wife by whatever means were necessary. This made him concerned about his materials and recordings.
"In the early hours of the following morning, I was taken by car to the Border," he said. "We changed cars at the Border and I was taken to Dublin, where I did my first radio report. I do not know who took me away."
The witness was shown a photograph by Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the tribunal, which, counsel said, appeared to show a man with his hand towards his pocket moving along a gable wall behind which some soldiers were kneeling.
Asked if this was one of his photographs, Mr Grimaldi said he did not know. "I never saw a man with a gun," he insisted. "I am not aware of having taken a picture of a man with a gun . . . I think it would be extremely difficult to identify this fellow as a gunman."
Mr Clarke said the image was taken from a video copy of a television documentary that incorporated the photograph, but both the negative and the original photograph had not yet been traced. The witness said he doubted he had taken the photograph.
Mr Grimaldi said a film camera he had with him on the day did not work, so he was only able to take stills. "That is one of the greatest regrets of my professional career," he said.
When he and Ms North reached the car-park of Rossville Flats, there was shooting, and he saw paratroopers firing into the car-park where people were crowding into passageways between the blocks of flats.
He yelled in the direction of the soldiers "Bastards, stop it". A soldier swung around and aimed his rifle from the hip. "At that moment, someone grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me back . . . I then definitely heard three shots very close to where we were standing," he said.
He also described seeing a colleague, Gilles Peres, a Magnum agency photographer, with his hands up and a camera dangling around his neck, shouting "Press". A paratrooper kneeling in the car-park was aiming his rifle at him. He saw Mr Peres throw himself on the ground at the same time that a shot rang out.
The inquiry continues today.