A former British army paratrooper became visibly upset yesterday when he admitted that he had killed "lots of people" during his three-year-long military career immediately after Bloody Sunday.
The now-retired soldier also described the January 1972 killings in the Bogside area of Derry as a tragedy and said he was "sorry that innocent people got killed on that day".
The former paratrooper told the inquiry into the killings by paratroopers of 13 unarmed civilians during an illegal civil rights march 31 years ago, that although he regretted the deaths, he was still justified in his actions of shooting at and wounding one or two civilian gunmen on the day.
Known to the inquiry as Soldier S, the witness said he was involved in a firefight on Bloody Sunday with one or two civilian gunmen whom he claimed had fired 13 shots at him from an alleyway after he got out of an armoured personnel carrier.
He said he returned four bursts of three shots and that he hit his intended target twice.
Soldier S said he regretted the whole incident.
"Even the man that I identified as a gunmen, who was obviously posing a threat to us in the alleyway, if I did hit him and kill him, it is still a tragedy, is it not? It is still, somebody grieved him. Although I had a duty to do that, it is still a tragedy to his family, is it not?
"This is a tragedy, it is a tragedy for everybody.
"I realise that and I am sorry that innocent people got killed on that day.
"I am very, very sorry for that, but for my action on the day, my particular action, I believe I was justified in what I did," he told the inquiry's three judges.
Cross-examined by Mr Barry MacDonald QC, for most of the Bloody Sunday victims' families, Soldier S said that about nine months after the Bogside killings, he took part in a separatist war in the Middle East with special forces.
During that time firefights and ambushes occurred almost daily and in the incidents he was involved in he used heavy-duty machine guns, mortars and hand-held rockets.
His army career ended three years later when he was seriously wounded in a gun battle in the Middle East.
When asked by Mr MacDonald how many people he had killed, Soldier S paused and became visibly upset.
The inquiry was adjourned until Monday.