MI5 agent will not face Bloody Sunday inquiry
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A former security forces agent who claimed Martin McGuinness fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday will not be called to give evidence at the Saville inquiry.
Lord Saville of Newdigate announced yesterday that any attempt to call the agent, code-named Infliction, would interfere with his right to life.
The judge did not spell out the reasons for his decision, which followed a private meeting in London between members of the inquiry and MI5.
The absence of the personal evidence of Infliction, said to have been a former senior member of the IRA, will be regarded by many as a drawback to the efforts of the inquiry to establish the facts of Bloody Sunday. Fourteen people were killed in Londonderry in January 1972.
Infliction, said to be living overseas, reported to the security services in 1984 on conversations he claimed to have had with Mr McGuinness, who "seemed to have it on his conscience that he fired the first shot" on Bloody Sunday.
A report given to the inquiry stated: "Martin McGuinness had admitted to Infliction that he had personally fired the shot from the Rossville flats in Bogside that had precipitated the Bloody Sunday episode."
Mr McGuinness has admitted he was second-in-com-mand of the IRA in London- derry at the time but hotly denies that he or other members of the organisation fired shots on that day.
Peter Cush QC, representing the Sinn Fein leader, told the inquiry Mr McGuinness had wanted to hear the allegations against him and to have lawyers cross-examine the person making them. Not calling Infliction rendered Mr McGuinness "deaf, dumb and blind in the face of very serious allegations," Mr Cush said, and those allegations should now be ignored.
The authorities are also pressing for restrictions when the inquiry hears evidence from former MI5 agent David Shayler and agents A and B, who were Infliction's handlers.