A volunteer paramedic insisted today a soldier fired into an Army vehicle where three of the victims of Bloody Sunday lay dead or dying.
Giving evidence, Ms Alice Doherty claimed the shooting happened after she and two other now-deceased civilians heard moans from inside the Saracen and saw one of the "bodies" move.
She told the Saville Tribunal in Derry she had kept silent about the incident until the current inquiry because one of her fellow witnesses, her leader in the Knights of Malta, Mr Leo Day, feared it would further distress the relatives of the dying man at the time of Bloody Sunday.
She said of her decision to recount the episode now: "I just brought it out because I thought it was time, that the families should know the truth of some of the things that was covered up on that day."
Mr Day had urged her to hold back the evidence at a meeting of the Knights of Malta eight days after Bloody Sunday and she had not discussed it with anyone else before then, she said.
Asked by junior Counsel to the Inquiry Mr Alan Roxburgh, why she told no-one about it, she said: "There was no much cruelty going on that day and, being young, I was in total shock."
Her account was challenged by Mr Peter Clarke QC, acting for most of the soldiers, who said no-one else had seen it happen.
He added: "What I have to suggest is, it is very unfair not just on the soldiers but on the families when you start accusing soldiers of firing into Saracens when they never did it?"
But she replied: "They did, they did."
It has already been established that three men shot and fatally wounded on the rubble barricade - Mr Michael McDaid, Mr John Young and Mr William Nash - were retrieved from the scene by troops and placed into an Armoured Personnel Carrier.
Mrs Doherty, who was 18 years old on Bloody Sunday, said she approached the Saracen with Mr Day and Fr Anthony Mulvey, who have both since died. Another priest, Fr John Irwin was in the area but further behind the group, she said.
PA