McGuinness the bomber

IRA man who would become politician filmed by US crew

- CHRIS HUGHES

CHILLING footage showing a young Martin McGuinness setting up an IRA car bomb has been uncovered.

It was recorded by a US film crew in Northern Ireland who were given extraordinary access to the Republican movement in the 70s.

The film is now being shown on British screens for the first time in a BBC programme about the lost paramilitary documentary.

The bomb which McGuinness helped to prepare injured some 26 people when it went off in Derry's Shipquay Street in 1972. The number plate of the car McGuinness was seen loading in the film was later found in blast debris.

It is thought that senior IRA figures gave permission for the documentary team - headed by American academic Bowyer Bell to follow McGuinness and his colleagues' terrorist activities.

It has also been claimed that McGuinness warned he would kill a member of the crew if the IRA failed to get complete control over the contents of the film, titled Secret Army.

And he appears armed with a pistol in the film as he and fellow former terrorist Tony Devine drive the camera crew around the city.