A self confessed IRA gunman tonight dismissed as "nonsense" a report claiming he killed three British soldiers before Bloody Sunday.
The ex-paramilitary known as Official IRA Man One (OIRA1) was questioned about an article in the Sunday Telegraphin which a gunman who admitted firing on Bloody Sunday, said he had shot and killed three soldiers.
A journalist called Gerard Kemp has submitted a statement to the Saville Tribunal confirming he wrote an article under the headline "IRA sniper tells of Bloody Sunday".
The article written three months after Bloody Sunday said the Official IRA man had agreed to talk to him on condition his name and rank were not given.
"He admitted firing the single high velocity round but said he did so after he had heard two shots and seen the crowd dragging away the two wounded.
"The sniper in his early 20's said he had shot and killed three British soldiers since last August, the army confirming their deaths," it added.
OIRA1 today denied giving an interview to Mr Kemp but said the reporter's account of what happened on Bloody Sunday that he fired a shot at a soldier in response to the wounding of two civilians - was accurate. He also denied that he would have described himself as a sniper or that he told the journalist he had killed three British soldiers. "It is nonsense," he replied.
The inquiry is investigating the events of January 30th, 1972 when 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers in the Bogside area of Derry during a civil rights march.
OIRA1 was pressed by lawyers about his claims that he had fired a shot at a soldier after hearing that two civilians had been wounded. He was asked by counsel for the inquiry if he had changed the order of events to justify his actions or to give the Official IRA credibility with the people of Derry by claiming he had fired in defence of civilians.
But during his two days in the witness box, OIRA1 insisted that he had fired a shot from a second floor flat in response to the Army firing first. He also maintained that he and a comrade had gone to collect a defective rifle in the Bogside on the day of the march.