A barrister for Gerry Adams has told the high court in London it was a “logical fallacy” to assume he was a leading member of the IRA.
Edward Craven, who is defending Adams in a personal injuries suit brought against him by three victims of IRA bombings, said the case against him was built on hearsay that he was a member of the organisation and had sat on its army council.
He said the case against Adams that he was in the IRA was based on “a lot of smoke, [so] there must be a fire in there somewhere”.
The former Sinn Féin president is being sued for personal injury by three victims of IRA attacks – Jonathan Ganesh, John Clark and Barry Laycock – who allege he is personally liable for the bombings in Britain that injured them.
READ MORE
The attacks include the Old Bailey bombing in 1973 and explosions in Manchester and London’s docklands in 1996. The claimants are suing Adams for a nominal £1 damages.
Anne Studd, the barrister for the three IRA victims, argued the bombings in Britain happened with “the knowledge and agreement of [Adams]” as an IRA member and, in the 1990s, “a member of the seven-man [IRA] army council”.
But Craven said there was “no credible evidence” to link him to the three bombings. He said the Troubles era was “fertile ground for rumours” that over time had “metamorphosed into assumed facts” about Adams.
Earlier, Studd told the court in London the claimants would seek to prove Adams was “so intrinsically involved” in the IRA that he “was as culpable as those who planted the bombs”. Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA, and is fighting the case.
There was a heavy police presence in central London at the Royal Courts of Justice complex on Strand, next to Fleet Street.
There were five police vans parked near the court complex when it opened at 9am, as well as some of Adams’s supporters with Irish tricolours. The former Sinn Féin president appeared at Court 16 – known as the Chancellor’s Court – shortly before 10am.
Studd spent the morning laying out the claimants’ basis for their claim. She cited evidence of Adams’s alleged wearing of a beret at a 1970 IRA funeral.
“He would never have been entitled to wear the beret unless he had taken the oath of an [IRA] volunteer,” she said.
Studd referred to his attendance at secret meetings in 1972 between the IRA and British government officials. Adams has argued that he was at those meetings as a member of Sinn Féin, but Studd referred to later writings from former IRA leader Seán Mac Stíofáin which she argued suggested that only IRA members had attended.
The claimants argued that Adams had made certain admissions around being an IRA member when he was arrested in 1972, but the former Sinn Féin president is arguing that any confessions were unreliable because he was beaten after his arrest.
Studd cited a 2010 interview with former IRA member Dolours Price, who was one of 10 convicted of the Old Bailey bombing. She said Adams had been present at a meeting to recruit the teams for attacks in Britain and said it was a “hanging” offence.
Later, Craven said Price had a “virulent hatred” for Adams and “loathed” the peace process that Adams had helped to drive.
The claimants allege Adams was the IRA prisoner who wrote a 1970s column in republican newspaper An Phoblacht under the pseudonym Brownie. Adams is arguing that he was not the only person who wrote that column.
He says a specific column, in which Brownie admits being in the IRA – “rightly or wrongly, I’m an IRA volunteer” – was written by his then assistant, Richard McAuley.
The three Troubles victims are also relying on claims by former IRA member Sean O’Callaghan that he attended IRA meetings with Adams in the 1980s. Studd also cited the words of former politicians including former minister for justice Michael McDowell, as well as evidence from former RUC and British army intelligence officers.
She said evidence showed Adams only took a “backwards step” from leading the IRA in the 2000s, a decade after the docklands and Manchester bombings. Adams is arguing that evidence shows Sinn Féin politician Gerry Kelly “dominated and controlled” the IRA in the 1990s, not him.
Adams is also arguing that the personal injury claims against him are time-barred, and that the views of intelligence officers and others are “hearsay”.
The case, which will play out over this week and next, is the first time Adams will be cross-examined in a British court about whether or not he was in the IRA.
