A witness has told the trial of a former soldier how he saw his own flesh “breaking away from his face” when he was shot on Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n
Michael Quinn also told Belfast Crown Court how he saw other victims fall after being shot when soldiers opened fire in Derry.<\/p>\n
Members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civilians in the city after a civil rights march in January 1972.<\/p>\n
An Army veteran, identified only as Soldier F, has been charged with the murders of two men killed on Bloody Sunday, James Wray and William McKinney.<\/p>\n
He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident in the city’s Bogside area, including Mr Quinn, Joe Mahon, Joseph Friel, Patrick O’Donnell and a person unknown.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.<\/p>\n
The veteran sits behind a curtain during the non-jury trial.<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn said he was a 17-year-old schoolboy when he joined the civil rights march in 1972.<\/p>\n
He told the court how at one point he was asked by Mr Wray to carry a banner in the march.<\/p>\n
After disturbances broke out, Mr Quinn said he was taking shelter at a rubble barricade in William Street when he saw two army Saracens enter the area.<\/p>\n
He said: “I could see soldiers jumping out of the back of the Saracens.<\/p>\n
“One of them was swinging the rifle like a club … that was quite shocking.”<\/p>\n
He said he then heard four shots.<\/p>\n
“That really threw me, I couldn’t understand why they were shooting because I hadn’t heard anything fired at the Army.”<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn then said he saw another soldier emerge from the direction of the Rossville Flats.<\/p>\n
He told the court: “He had his rifle by his side, he raised it a little, from a pouch at his side he took out what I took to be a bullet.<\/p>\n
“There was a setting sun, it was quite bright, I could see this metal object glistening in the sun.<\/p>\n
“He put it into the breech of the rifle.<\/p>\n
“At this point I thought I am getting out of here.”<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn said he moved towards Glenfada Park North.<\/p>\n
He said he then saw two youths there, one of whom had what he thought looked like a nail bomb in his pocket.<\/p>\n
He said he saw a man in his mid-20s approach them and tell them “put those away, you will only get killed”.<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn said there was sustained gunfire from the Rossville Street area. He told the court he then saw a man being shot.<\/p>\n
He said: “I heard him call out, scream. I looked at him and saw a ring of blood emerging on his leg and he was collapsing to the ground.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I heard someone shout ‘there are people dying out here’.<\/p>\n
“I saw a group of people carrying the body of a young man across Glenfada Park.”<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn said he tried to get out of the courtyard when he heard someone shout that soldiers were coming in.<\/p>\n
He said: “I ran crouching across the courtyard. I remember jumping over the raised ground.<\/p>\n
“As I was approaching the exit to Abbey Park, I felt myself being struck by the bullet.<\/p>\n
“It grazed my shoulder, the jacket I was wearing, and then went through my face and exited through my nose.<\/p>\n
“For some reason I slowed down, and I could actually see the flesh and blood breaking away from my face.<\/p>\n
“I stumbled and I could see to my right someone falling forward.<\/p>\n
“I thought his head was hitting the kerb.<\/p>\n
“What made me think he was shot, he didn’t try to save himself, his hands didn’t go out.”<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn told the court he was taken to hospital where he was operated on.<\/p>\n
He said his cheekbone had been shattered by the bullet.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A witness has told the trial of a former soldier how he saw his own flesh “breaking away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-59163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}