The Bloody Sunday inquiry has served a subpoena on a former British army paratrooper who has threatened not to give evidence to the inquiry today.
The soldier, known as Soldier L, makes a number of startling allegations in his statement submitted to the inquiry about the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry's Bogside in January 1972.
Soldier L claims that he saw the then Father Edward Daly put two rifles belonging to civilian gunmen inside his cassock in a bid to conceal them.
He also claims that he saw one of his colleagues fire a volley of shots from point-blank range at a wounded man lying on the ground and that the man's body was cut in half by the bullets.
Among the other allegations that Soldier L makes are that he removed a number of parcels containing plastic explosives from a rubble barricade in Rossville Street where most of the 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers on the day, and that he fired a total of four shots at two separate gunmen.
At yesterday's hearing in the Central Hall in Westminster, the inquiry's chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, said he had been informed that Soldier L was proposing not to attend the hearing today to give his evidence.
Soldier L's barrister, Ms Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC, told the inquiry that her client "was distressed by the service of a certain document on him".
Lord Saville told the hearing that the document was a subpoena served by the inquiry on Soldier L. He asked Ms Horwood-Smart if her client "appreciates the consequences of failing to obey a subpoena".
The soldier's barrister said her client's instructing solicitor had advised her that Soldier L's mental state appeared to be deteriorating, and he was voicing an unwillingness to give evidence.
"We met him in chambers and during a very long conversation with him, he was not at all clear in his indications and, having been served with the subpoena, he was distrustful . . . of us and our instructing solicitor, and was unhappy at the position in which he found himself," she said. However, Lord Saville said that Soldier L had "many weeks' notice" that he was required to give his evidence today.
"We have limited time now since our intention is to finish the evidence in London at the end of the sixth week . . . we simply cannot countenance a failure to turn up for no apparent good reason. I trust you and your solicitors would continue to try and contact him during the course of today, and press the importance of his attendance and . . . perhaps impress upon him the consequences of his failure to attend tomorrow morning," he told Ms Horwood-Smart.
Meanwhile, a paratrooper who was aged 21 at the time of the Bloody Sunday killings, told the inquiry yesterday that he saw several of his colleagues firing at a crowd of people close to a rubble barricade in the Bogside.
"I imagine about 30 to 40 shots were fired intermittently over a period of a few seconds, although it seemed to last an eternity. These were not random shots, they were very purposeful, aimed shots," he said.
"I did not see any civilian gunmen or anyone falling wounded or killed. I did not hear any incoming rounds, however that is not to say that the gunmen were not there or that there were no incoming shots," he said.
The former paratrooper said that the soldiers were "picking their targets and not firing indiscriminately into the crowd, they were focused". He believed the crowds of civil rights marchers were shielding gunmen.
"The SLR rifle is a very powerful weapon. One round could quite possibly go through two people," he said.
The inquiry resumes today.