The Bloody Sunday Inquiry today had to consider its latest
problem after a witness refused to confirm the identity of an alleged gunman said to have opened fire in the city that day.
Tribunal Chairman Lord Saville invited submissions from lawyers acting for relatives of the dead and for soldiers later this afternoon, following the position taken by Mr William Harley.
The gunman reportedly spotted in the Bogside after the first fatal shooting was named in another witness statement as Tony Rush - a claim denied by Mr Rush himself, said Counsel to the Inquiry Mr Christopher Clarke QC.
But Mr Harley refused to confirm his identity although he said he knew the man who fired five or six rounds from a pistol.
The claim about Mr Rush was in a written statement given to the inquiry by Mr Anthony Joseph Call.
Mr Clarke read out a section which alleged that the IRA was in Derry's Creggan estate on the day of the big civil rights march in the neighbouring Bogside district.
Both the Creggan and Bogside were 'no-go' areas for security forces at the time and Mr Call said the paramilitaries were in the Creggan estate that day because "if they left it exposed, the Brits would probably come in."
His deposition stated that he heard that the Official IRA, from which the Provisionals started to emerge two years earlier, acknowledged that one man fired from a pistol - allegedly Tony Rush, who discharged "a couple" of rounds from a wall at the end of Chamberlain Street.
Mr Harley, watching events from the window of his top floor home in the high-rise Rossville Flats, gave a near-identical description of an account of "civilian" gunfire given by retired Bishop of Derry Dr Edward Daly earlier this week.
PA