Jackie Duddy was the youngest and the first fatality on Bloody Sunday. He was shot in the back of the right shoulder as he ran alongside then Father Edward Daly, through the car park of the Rossville Street flats away from the advancing paratroopers.
The inquiry had earlier heard that an RUC investigation at the time concluded that he had been murdered.
In that area, known to the inquiry as sector 2, the soldiers fired 32 shots, killing Jackie Duddy and wounding Margaret Deery, Michael Bridge, Michael Bradley and Patrick McDaid. Several shots were fired overhead, but 27 were fired by six soldiers at nine targets.
Mr Clarke said that those 27 shots should have resulted, according to the soldiers' evidence, in three nail-bombers, three gunmen and one petrol-bomber being killed or wounded.
"However, there is no clear match between any of the targets described by the soldiers and any of the known casualties."
Mr Clarke said the soldiers' lawyers, the Treasury Solicitors Department, had submitted that it was probable Jackie Duddy was "accidentally hit at a time when he was among or close to a hostile crowd that were throwing objects at the soldiers and when a soldier aimed at another person". Even if that hypothesis was correct, it did not necessarily follow that the soldier who fired the shot was justified in doing so.
"We turn to the question of who shot Mr Duddy. We say there is no reason to believe anyone other than a soldier shot Mr Duddy."
Mr Clarke then dealt with the killings of Michael Kelly, Hugh Gilmour, Michael McDaid, William Nash, John Young and Kevin McElhinney, all of whom were shot in the vicinity of a rubble barricade in Rossville Street. In this area, according to the evidence, soldiers fired 39 shots.
The bullet recovered from the body of Mr Kelly was matched to the rifle of Lance Cpl F who said he'd fired at a nail bomber.
"If the tribunal is satisfied Mr Kelly was not a nail bomber, then Lance Cpl F's evidence that he fired at a nail bomber and that he hit his intended target must, in at least one of those respects, be either mistaken or untruthful unless the bullet hit the nail bomber before it hit Mr Kelly," he said.
"Issues that remain are whether the shot was aimed at Mr Kelly or at someone else, whether the bullet hit someone else before it hit Mr Kelly, whether anyone standing near Mr Kelly had been attempting to throw a nail bomb and whether Mr Kelly or anyone near him had been behaving in any way that caused or could have caused Lance Cpl F to mistake him for a nail bomber," he added.
Mr Gilmour was shot after Mr Kelly. "There is no evidence that he was armed," he said. "Other witnesses who have said Mr Gilmour was standing at or near the rubble barricade when he was shot have agreed that he had nothing in his hand."
Mr Clarke then referred to the killings of Michael McDaid, William Nash and John Young. "We suggest that the tribunal may think that if the evidence of the soldiers is assumed to be approximately accurate as to the direction and timing of their fire and complete as to the numbers of shots fired, the shots most likely to have caused the deaths of Mr McDaid, Mr Nash and Mr Young are the four shots fired by Cpl P at an alleged gunman," he said.
Turning to the killing of Mr McElhinney, Mr Clarke said the question of whether or not he had been throwing stones appeared irrelevant to the question of whether or not there was any justification for his shooting.
He said the inquiry could conclude that either Sgt K, Private L or Private M had shot Mr McElhinney.
The tribunal would then also have to consider whether it could conclude which of the three were most likely to have fired the fatal shot, he said. "They have also to consider whether that evidence enables it to reach any conclusion as to which of the three soldiers is most likely to have fired the fatal shot."