The Bloody Sunday Inquiry Day 339A Bloody Sunday soldier yesterday denied that he invented a story about shooting dead a nail-bomber to justify opening fire on the day when 13 civilians were shot dead and 13 others wounded by British army paratroopers in Derry on January 30th, 1972.
The now retired paratrooper claimed at the tribunal of inquiry into the killings yesterday that he shot dead a man who had thrown a nail bomb after soldiers had been deployed into the Bogside during an illegal civil rights march.
The former soldier, known to the inquiry as Soldier Q, said the nail bomber threw the device towards his armoured personnel carrier. The bomb exploded and the witness said he then shot the man as he was in the process of throwing a second device.
Soldier Q, who was in the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, said the bomb attack occurred in a car park to the rear of the Rossville Flats complex shortly after he was took up position the area.
He said the nail bomber appeared in a gap between two blocks of the flats. The nail bomb exploded "in amongst the people" after which the bomber ducked around the corner.
"He then reappeared around the same corner from around the flats. I could see the whole of his body. He had another bomb. He was preparing to throw it. I took aim, took the safety catch off and shot him," he told the inquiry's judges.
"I know I hit him because he went down. I cannot describe how he fell, he just went down, I saw him drop. As soon as he went down I knew I had neutralised the target and put my safety catch on," he said.
"I did not see where I hit him but I knew I hit him in the chest. I knew that if he was hit by a 7.62 mm bullet in the chest, he would be dead. All I can say is that experience and intuition told me that I had killed him and that he was dragged away," he added.
Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the inquiry, told Soldier Q no other soldiers nor any civilians had seen a nail-bomb being thrown in the circumstances described by the witness.
"The possibility therefore arises that you have invented an account of some form of nail-bomb attack in order to hide what in fact happened, is that so?" he asked the witness.
Soldier Q denied the allegation, and said he was confident that he had both targeted and hit a nail-bomber.
Mr Clarke said if Soldier Q's evidence was right, someone died on Bloody Sunday who has never been accounted for.
The inquiry resumes today.