A solicitor representing a controversial military witness has asked the tribunal to ensure that his client would not be named at any future hearing of the inquiry, even though his name has been mentioned at a previous hearing and is accessible on the Internet.
The application was made on behalf of soldier 027, the subject of a witness protection programme arranged by the NIO because of the crucial nature of his evidence and the possibility of a threat to his personal security.
In a preliminary statement supplied to the inquiry, soldier 027, who was among the paratroopers who invaded the Bogside on Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were shot dead, alleges that his colleagues shot unarmed civilians without any justification.
Yesterday Mr Geoffrey Bind man, solicitor, on behalf of 027, submitted that his client's identity was not in the public domain, even though it had been mentioned once at an earlier hearing by counsel representing British soldiers, Mr Edwin Glasgow.
Mr Bindman said Mr Glasgow had accepted that he was wrong to mention the name and had apologised. He accepted that the name had appeared once in the transcripts of the tribunal hearings (published on the Internet), but this was not a case in which the name had been made public "in any wide sense".
The tribunal chairman, Lord Saville, said it was accepted that the name had been mentioned in the course of a public inquiry to which the public and press had had access. "I find it a little difficult to see what more would be required to put that person's name in the public domain."
Lord Gifford QC, for a number of the families, opposed the application, arguing that the name was in the public domain. He suggested that the application was "to save soldier 027 from embarrassment" rather than to protect his security. He said two potential sources of threat to 027 had been mentioned, without supporting evidence.
The decision was reserved.