Bloody Sunday Inquiry: A former member of both the Provisional and Official IRA admitted on two occasions yesterday that he had "told a pack of lies" to a journalist about the Bloody Sunday killings in the Bogside, Derry, on January 30th, 1972.
The man, aged 49, who was jailed for 15 years when he was convicted of bombing and hijacking offences in the 1970s, said although he had lied about his Bloody Sunday activities in a series of interviews with journalist Peter Taylor in 1997, his contemporaneous evidence to the inquiry into the Bogside killings was truthful.
Known as Official IRA 11, he told the inquiry that he did "not necessarily" want to give evidence. Although he had been both named and filmed by Mr Taylor, he had sought to give his evidence anonymously because he was "frightened of loyalist attacks".
He told the 422nd day of the Bloody Sunday inquiry that the account he'd given to Mr Taylor about having seen the bodies of several unarmed civilians who had been shot by British army paratroopers was "a complete untruth" and "all exaggerated".
The witness said he recalled giving the interview to Mr Taylor, who was writing a book on the Provisional IRA in 1997. "I have to accept that the account that I gave to Peter Taylor was not accurate."