The Northern Ireland Director of Public Prosecutions was not involved in the police decision to launch a murder investigation into the Bloody Sunday killings, his office said.
Barra McGrory, QC, represented Martin McGuinness in the Saville Inquiry into the shootings in Londonderry in January 1972 when the Sinn Fein MP was an IRA leader in the city.
A report which confirmed the innocence of the 13 men shot dead by British Paratroopers also claimed that Mr McGuinness, now the deputy Northern Ireland First Minister, gave wrong information about his movements that day and was probably carrying a machine gun which he may have used to open fire on troops. A 14th victim died later.
The chief constable of the PSNI, Matt Baggott, said the investigation involving up to 40 officers could take four years to complete.
Mr McGrory insisted he had no part in the decision by the chief constable to begin a murder inquiry.
A spokesman said when he took up his position as director last November he had identified Bloody Sunday as one of a number of cases in which there may be a potential conflict of interest.
Some Unionist politicians, furious with the chief constable's decision, are demanding Mr McGuinness be questioned and the inquiry be widened to include the murders of two RUC officers shot dead by the IRA in Derry just days before Bloody Sunday.
East Londonderry DUP MP Gregory Campbell said: "If the material contained in the Saville Report is good enough to warrant an investigation of the soldiers, then the police will also note that the report indicates the Deputy First Minister was 'probably' carrying a sub-machine-gun on that day. This must also merit investigation by the police."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article