New footage has revealed how IRA boss Martin McGuinness famously known as ‘The Butcher of Bogside’ helped set up a car bomb that later blew up in the Londonderry city centre.
The video documentary was unearthed after almost 50 years it was kept hidden.
Prior to the Bomb Crime
In the footage were numbers of men, including McGuinness, who was feared for his murderous streak, packing explosives into a Volkswagen on a street in Londonderry, Northern Ireland before the vehicle was driven away in 1972.
Seconds later, the car bomb was detonated on Shipquay Street. The huge explosion injured 26 people and destroyed several buildings in the city centre.
BBCÂ analysts have now determined the Volkswagen that McGuinness, then 21, helped pack with explosives was responsible for the bombing by connecting its registration plate to the one found at the blast site.
The car in the footage featured the number plate 7337 UI. Archival photographs from the explosion showed the same registration plate spewed amongst the wreckage.
The newly unmasked documentary, titled The Secret Army, was captured by an American film crew using fake press credentials and appears to be the first time McGuinness and his associates were filmed without disguises.
The Bloody Sunday Massacre in 1972
McGuinness was the IRA’s second-in-command in Londonderry during the Bloody Sunday Massacre, in which 13 innocent civilians were killed by British soldiers during a peaceful protest against internment in 1972.
The documentary captured the terror group’s rank-and-file personnel participating in shootings and bombings during their campaign in 1972.
