A former Provisional IRA member today rejected suggestions the paramilitary group planned to retake Derry's Creggan area on Bloody Sunday.
Derry nationalists have argued that the Parachute Regiment was deployed in January 1972 to teach them a lesson about who controlled "Free Derry", which included the Creggan and Bogside areas.
But PIRA 23, who described himself as officer in charge of the Creggan said he would have known if there had been a planned operation to regain control of his area.
"I have been asked whether there was any mention of a possible incursion by the Army into the 'no go areas' on the afternoon of the march. I would have known from our intelligence sources if this was going to happen. There was no such intelligence."
He refused to give details of the organisation's intelligence sources.
His claims appear to back up evidence by British army chiefs and senior politicians that there was no plan to reclaim the "no-go areas" on the day of the civil rights march.
In his evidence to the inquiry last year, former Prime Minister Edward Heath said his government's view was that the areas had to be retaken but there was no plan to do so at the end of January 1972.
PA