A lawyer representing more than 400 British soldiers accused the tribunal yesterday of unfairness to his clients in proposing to postpone until November a hearing as to where they should give their evidence about Bloody Sunday.
Mr David Lloyd-Jones QC complained that since December 1998 "the soldiers have lived under the threat that they will be compelled to attend in Londonderry to give their evidence."
He argued that the security threat in Derry was unlikely to diminish. "The reality is that there are dissident terrorist organisations operating in close proximity to this venue. The prospects of their abandoning their terrorist activities permanently in the next few months are non-existent."
Lord Saville said the accusation of procedural unfairness was a serious matter, and he asked Mr Lloyd-Jones why he had not joined with the victims' families in asking the tribunal to decide the question last September.
In reply, Mr Lloyd-Jones claimed that the circumstances were not precisely the same: the tribunal had now received the threat assessments which it had commissioned. Lord Saville said there would be, in any case, a minimum "lead time" of six to nine months in advance of the hearing of the soldiers' evidence. He said the tribunal's thinking was that the decision on venue should be taken at a time which reduced as far as possible the risk of a material change of circumstances which could lead, quite possibly, to a further court challenge relating to venue.
He said the tribunal believed it would be preferable to defer the hearing of venue arguments until the last week of November, which would provide sufficient time both for administrative arrangements to be made, and for any challenge to be made to any ruling the tribunal might then make.
According to sources close to the inquiry, the total of potential military witnesses to be heard is now close to 500. Their legal representatives have made strong preliminary submissions that their oral evidence should be taken at a venue other than Derry, but this is equally strongly opposed by lawyers for the Bloody Sunday victims' relatives and the wounded.
Mr Michael Mansfield QC, on behalf of several of the next of kin and one of the wounded, called for an independent analysis of how the "threat assessments" supplied to the tribunal had been arrived at. He said it was a quite ludicrous situation that the latest threat assessment, dated June 1st, counted the overall level of threat on the "UK mainland" from Irish-related terrorism to have risen from "significant" to "high", while describing the threat to military targets as remaining "moderate".
The tribunal decided that the hearing on the matter of venue for the military evidence would be adjourned until November. The inquiry then adjourned until next Monday.