Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mr John Hume has told the Saville Inquiry in Derry of his fears for the civil rights march that ended in the death of 13 unarmed civilians at the hands of the British army 30 years ago.
Mr Hume said he encountered members of the Parachute Regiment a week before the march when they opened fire on a civil rights meeting at Magilligan Strand, Co Derry.
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The former SDLP leader said he stayed away from the civil rights march on January 30th, 1972 - a day he told the inquiry was the worst in the history of Derry.
Giving evidence today he said: "If they were firing rubber bullets and gas on a beach where there could not be any form of violence . . . I thought: 'Good Lord, what would they do on the streets of a town and what trouble would they cause'".
Mr Hume also said he was told by an officer in charge of the soldiers at Magilligan that they had been ordered there by "your Government," which he took to mean the old unionist-dominated Stormont regime - again contributing toward his fears.
Mr Hume challenged the inquiry to find out who was behind the deployment of the soldiers on Bloody Sunday - they were supposed to be under the direct control of the Westminster regime.
"That is the question I believe this inquiry should find out immediately and I believe, if they do, they will get the real results of this inquiry".
Mr Hume also dismissed suggestions - being pursued by lawyers representing British soldiers - that there may have been IRA gunmen shot that day and subsequently buried in secret.
He said: "If any of those people killed had been members of the IRA, there would have been an IRA funeral. "Because no matter what has happened with members of the IRA, when they die there is always an IRA funeral, which is a funeral with the Irish flag and all the rest of it".
Earlier, Mr Hume said Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness - now the Mid Ulster MP and Northern Ireland Education Minister - was believed to be an IRA figure at the time of Bloody Sunday.
Additional reporting: PA
