The Saville tribunal ruled yesterday that five former Official IRA members who have offered to give evidence should be granted anonymity on the same basis as that given to British soldiers who will testify.
The grant of anonymity means they will give evidence publicly, without screening, but will be identified only by a cipher, letter or number - as applies already to military and police personnel other than the highest ranking officers.
The chairman, Lord Saville, said the tribunal was satisfied the men had genuine fears for their safety and that of their families if their names were made public by the inquiry.
The five include the man who was OC of the Official IRA in Derry at the time of Bloody Sunday, and two others who are understood to have confirmed they fired shots at an early stage in the events of January 30th, 1972, when British troops entered the Bogside and shot 13 civilians dead.
Making the application on behalf of the five men, Mr Brian Fee QC said each had moved on from past activities and had a new life unconnected to his previous involvement.
He said they had been watching proceedings at the inquiry unfold, and after discussions last December felt they should come forward with their evidence.
They were concerned that evidence currently before the tribunal relating to them and their former organisation was at variance to their own knowledge of the events of Bloody Sunday. Much of this evidence related to second-, third- and fourth-hand accounts long after the event and were tainted with the passage of time.
Many of these accounts were contradictory, he said, and the men were concerned that if allowed to stand, the picture given to the inquiry would be distorted and incomplete. This, in itself, could place the applicants at some risk, as their alleged involvement had been inaccurately reported.
Counsel said his clients were "very keen indeed" to co-operate fully with the inquiry and help it ascertain the truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday. "What they do not want to do is to put at risk their own lives or the lives of their families by being identified in a way that brings them to the attention of paramilitaries, and particularly loyalist paramilitaries." Counsel said the RUC, in a risk assessment of the first applicant's position, considered there was a real potential for a threat to emerge against him, not only from loyalist paramilitaries but also from dissident republicans.
His association with splinter groups in the republican movement had led to his being assaulted in the past, counsel said, and these groups had, even in the recent past, waged bloody and vindictive vendettas resulting in many deaths among their own communities.
Mr Fee told the tribunal that none of the five applicants had been convicted of any offence related to paramilitary involvement or activities. While they did not dissociate themselves from their previous actions, they wanted to continue in their careers and spheres of life entirely unconnected to the purported allegations currently attached to them.
Counsel representing a number of families of Bloody Sunday victims opposed the applications, arguing that the principle of open, public justice was fundamental and that no request for non-disclosure of names of witnesses should be acceded to.
It was also argued that some of the names have already been revealed in material published since 1972.
Granting the application in all five cases, Lord Saville said it was subject to the condition that if the tribunal concluded later that the anonymity was impeding the search for the truth about Bloody Sunday, it would revisit the question.
Some of the applicants watched yesterday's proceedings from the public gallery.