BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY/Day 337: A British soldier yesterday denied that he invented a story about shooting a nail-bomber in the shoulder during the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry.
He also rejected an assertion that he shot and wounded a man without justification on the day when 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead and 13 others were wounded by paratroopers in the Bogside on January 30th, 1972.
The former paratrooper told the inquiry that when he was deployed into the Bogside on the day the situation was "chaotic".
He said shots were directed at the paratroopers from the area of the Rossville Flats complex, and he was splashed on the leg with an acid-bomb.
The witness, known to the inquiry as Soldier R, who was aged 18 on Bloody Sunday, said he had a "grand view" of a man in his 20s who was standing in a bowling position armed with a "fizzing and smoking" bomb in the courtyard of the flats.
"I took aim and fired a single shot from my SLR. I believe that the bullet hit him high up on the right shoulder, causing him to spin around. I do not know what happened to the man after that, although I do recall people gathering around him."
Soldier R said he then saw a gunman standing in a nearby alleyway firing from a pistol. He fired three shots at this gunman, but did not think he hit him.
He told Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the inquiry, his intention was to kill the nail-bomber, and he believed he hit his target.
However, Mr Clarke said there were similarities between Soldier R's version and the circumstances in which Jackie Duddy was shot dead as he ran through the courtyard of the flats.
Mr Clarke said Duddy (17) was shot in the right shoulder and was then surrounded by a group of people. The witness was one of four soldiers who could have killed Duddy.
Soldier R said it was not possible that he had done so.
Mr Clarke said "the boy Jack Duddy" was shot dead within 15 yards of where Soldier R claimed to have shot a nail-bomber.
"That raised the possibility that there was, in fact, no man with a nail-bomb as you describe, and that your first shot was in fact directed towards the crowd or somebody who was in the crowd running away and was fired without justification.
"If that were so, that which I have been suggesting to you was so, it would follow that your account of a man with a nail bomb in a left-armed bowling position was invented."
Soldier R said he did not fire without justification, nor did he invent his version of events.
The inquiry continues today.