Bloody Sunday Inquiry/Day 404: The man who had control of the Provisional IRA's weapons arsenals and explosives dumps in Derry 30 years ago has told the Saville inquiry that none of its members was armed on Bloody Sunday.
Known as P IRA 17, he was the first Provisional IRA witness to apply for and be granted anonymity while giving his evidence to the inquiry in Derry's Guildhall.
He said yesterday that he had been the IRA's quartermaster for about six months at the time of the shootings by paratroopers of 26 unarmed civilians in the Bogside area of Derry on Bloody Sunday. Thirteen of whose shot during the civil rights march on January 30th, 1972, were killed.
P IRA 17 told the the inquiry into the shootings that on the day, the membership of the Provisional IRA numbered about 30 people who had up to 22 weapons available to them. He said that no member of the Provisional IRA, including the then second-in-command, Martin McGuinness, was armed on the day.
Following an order from the IRA's command staff, all weapons were placed in a central dump before the march. "Company quartermasters were informed that all weapons were to be brought to a central location," he said, adding that the central location was in the Bogside.
"I wish to state to this tribunal that I, as command quartermaster, and I also state to the people sitting in the gallery at the back, the relatives, the friends of the people murdered on Bloody Sunday, in particular to them, I bear full responsibility for putting them in the central dump, I bear full and absolute responsibility for telling this tribunal and telling you, the relatives of the people murdered, that the dump remained intact," he said.
The witness also said no nail bombs were either prepared or used by the Provisional IRA on Bloody Sunday. "What I am saying, I say very clearly and very specifically to this tribunal, that I, as command quartermaster, tell this inquiry there were no nail bombs available to the Provisional IRA on Bloody Sunday," he told the inquiry's three judges.
He confirmed to the chairman, Lord Saville, that not only were nail bombs not available, but "there were no nail bombs even prepared" for use. Several police and army witnesses have already told the inquiry that they heard the noise of nail bombs exploding on the day.
P IRA 17 said gelignite available to the IRA in 1972 was used to prime larger bombs which were made of home-made explosives.
Asked by Mr Edwin Glasgow QC, who represents most of the Bloody Sunday paratroopers, if the double murder of two police officers in Derry three days before Bloody Sunday has caused him concern, he said it had not.
"When I, as a soldier in the Irish Republican Army, joined the Irish Republican Army, I accepted, as a soldier, I may have died or I may have been wounded or I may have gone to jail." He believed that anybody who joined the RUC or British army would have joined under the same circumstances.
He added that none of the victims was a member of the IRA or any other paramilitary force.
The inquiry continues today.