THE REPORT:THE SAVILLE inquiry considered a number of allegations about what Martin McGuinness did in Derry on Bloody Sunday. These included a claim by an MI5 intelligence agent that he boasted of firing the first shot on the day.
Lord Saville noted in volume 8 of his report how in January 1972 Mr McGuinness was adjutant of the IRA in Derry, making him second in command in the city. Lord Saville said he considered allegations that on Bloody Sunday “that he was involved in plots to plant and use bombs, that he was armed on the day, and that he fired a shot”.
One of the most serious allegations was from the agent code-named Infliction, who in 1984 told handlers that Mr McGuinness, now Deputy First Minister, personally told him that he fired a single shot from a Thompson sub-machine gun from the Rossville flats in the Bogside that had precipitated the Bloody Sunday killings.
Lord Saville, who found that the British paratroopers fired the first shots on Bloody Sunday, had to rule on a number of allegations about Mr McGuinness. These also included that he was involved in a plot to plant a bomb in Duffy’s bookmakers in William Street and that he fired one shot there from a machine gun.
It was further alleged that there was a record of an interview conducted by the RUC in the early 1970s with a person who alleged he saw Mr McGuinness on Bloody Sunday carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun.
Mr McGuinness denied these claims, telling the inquiry that he was involved in the civil rights parade on Bloody Sunday as a “civilian” after first ensuring there would be no Provisional IRA actions during the march. Mr McGuinness said it was only in the evening of the day that he authorised the firing of “symbolic ” shots.
“If Martin McGuinness did tell Infliction that he had fired a Thompson sub-machine gun from the Rossville Flats on Bloody Sunday, it is in our view likely that this is what Martin McGuinness did,” Lord Saville reported.
“Nevertheless, our inability and that of those representing Martin McGuinness to question Infliction on such matters as to his relationship with Martin McGuinness and the circumstances in which Martin McGuinness is said to have made the remarks in question, and otherwise to test the truth of Infliction’s account and the accuracy of his recollection, have led us to conclude that it would be unwise (and indeed unfair) to place much weight on that account,” he added.
“On this basis we consider that this account by itself does no more than raise the possibility that, notwithstanding his denial, Martin McGuinness did fire a Thompson sub-machine gun on ‘single’ shot from the Rossville Flats on Bloody Sunday,” he said.
