https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4grnvz81kgo
Gerry Adams has defended the IRA's campaign of violence during the Troubles and declined to name any of its members during his latest evidence at his libel trial against the BBC.
Mr Adams is back on the witness stand at the High Court in Dublin.
He is suing the BBC for defamation over a 2016 story which alleged he gave final approval for the murder of Denis Donaldson, a British agent within Sinn Féin.
He denies any involvement.
Barrister Paul Gallagher SC representing the BBC, resumed his cross-examination of the former Sinn Féin president on Tuesday.
He showed Mr Adams a newspaper interview he had given in 1982 and remarks it contained about Mr Adams' attitude towards IRA violence.
Mr Adams told the barrister: "I have never resiled from the view the IRA campaign was a legitimate response to military occupation.
"I'm not here in this stand resiling from that position."
"It's a historical position now. The IRA have now left. They are no longer there.
"My position remains today what it has been consistently for at least 50 years."
'Fishing expedition'
Mr Adams was also asked if he knew who commanded the IRA in west Belfast in 1972, or any members from that time.
"I'm not going to speculate…a number of people have acknowledged they were members," Mr Adams said.
"You're asking me to go on a fishing expedition.
"At some point we will get around to the Spotlight programme?"
Mr Gallagher reminded the court that Mr Adams was released from internment without trial to attend peace talks with the British government in 1972.
The barrister referred to a book from the time authored by P O'Neill, a pseudonym used by the IRA.
An extract was handed to Mr Adams, in which it was written that a senior IRA member from Belfast had been released from internment to participate.
Mr Gallagher asked Mr Adams if that was him.
Mr Adams replied: "It wasn't me."
Harsh'
Later, the jury was shown a compilation of extracts from TV news reports and documentaries.
One of them was a BBC report from 1987, which featured a clip from a news conference in which Mr Adams spoke about the murder of Charles McIlmurray, whom the IRA claimed was an informer.
In the footage, responding to a reporter's question Mr Adams said: "Mr McIlmurray, like anyone living in west Belfast, knows that the consequences for informing is death."
Mr Adams told the court looking back, his remark was "harsh".
When asked by the BBC's barrister if the comments could have been interpreted as a warning or a threat, Mr Adams replied: "Not at all."
Another of the TV extracts focused on the murder of Jean McConville – who the IRA killed and secretly buried in 1972.
Mr Adams was asked if he had done anything at the time to find out where Mrs McConville was.
He said he "wasn't conscious" of the case then.
Asked what the purpose of "disappearing" informers was, Mr Adams said he "couldn't say" but it was "totally wrong".
The trial continues.
Who is Gerry Adams?
Mr Adams was the president of republican party Sinn Féin from 1983 until 2018.
He served as MP in his native Belfast West from 1983 to 1992 and again from 1997 until 2011 before sitting as a TD (Teachta Dála) in the Dáil (Irish parliament) between 2011 and 2020.
Mr Adams led the Sinn Féin delegation during peace talks that eventually brought an end to the Troubles after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
He was detained in the early 1970s when the government in Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for those suspected of paramilitary involvement.
Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA.
Who was Denis Donaldson
Mr Donaldson was once a key figure in Sinn Féin's rise as a political force in Northern Ireland but he was found murdered in 2006 after it emerged he had been a spy.
He was interned without trial for periods in the 1970s.
After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin appointed Mr Donaldson as its key administrator in the party's Stormont offices.
In 2005 Mr Donaldson confessed he was a spy for British intelligence for two decades, before disappearing from Belfast.
He was found dead in a small, run down cottage in Glenties, County Donegal.
by WrongdoerGold1683
23 comments
He da man!
Missed you Gaz!
>”At some point we will get around to the Spotlight programme?”
Licence fee payers’ money being well spent
Did he sue Disney for his depiction in Say Nothing, or was that all on the nose?
“I wasn’t in charge of the RA in 2005… er I mean ever!”
I don’t understand why people think he would willingly send himself to jail for 2 years just to placate people who hate him anyway.
Ironically he is probably telling the truth about the Donaldson thing.
Very surprised Gerry when suing the BBC never realised they would bring up his history. I thought he was smarter than that. They’re only touching on the disappeared women and some shootings, don’t think they’ll mention him covering up his brother, don’t see what that would bring to the table. One things for sure he’s helping a lot of people maybe young people as well understand the man he was, balls of steel if you ask me.
Ooh aah…..
>He was detained in the early 1970s when the government in Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for those suspected of paramilitary involvement.
I always love how they drop this stuff in and never add a preface that internment was illegal and he has never actually been convicted of anything.
He would
It’s disingenuous, indeed scurrilous, for anyone to deny that armed Republicanism saved the Nationalist population of the Six Counties from extermination in the 1970s and 1980s. Even the British Government and British Army top brass have acknowledged that fact.
However, when the Adams clique sold out in 1998 for tuppence-ha’penny and a rehashed Sunningdale they invalidated every action of PIRA after 1974.
Anyone who defends the actions of a terrorist group may as well be a terrorist, whether or not they were a member of them.
Same goes for anyone who votes for a party run by terrorist sympathisers.
Still a big old beardy coward then.
In tomorrows big bombshell, Gallagher is expected to bring up the time in the 80s when Adams allegedly returned a copy of Caddyshack II to Xtravision without rewinding the tape first.
Scumbag IRA Monster !!!
Scum
Adams can suck my balls
Weird that this is the narrative they’re going with. I was far more surprised to see Gerry say that not all PIRA actions were justified and even describing some of them as “atrocities” in his previous testimony. That seems like a pretty big departure from the party line, but it wasn’t worthy of a headline or even a sub?
Gerry has never had a beard, nor would he ever consider having a beard. Any allegations of him having a beard are slanderous lies from the Brits!
Guy should just retire quietly, lead the rest of his life as a private citizen and let his party be ran by people who aren’t strongly suspected of having committed war crimes. His continued presence in Sinn Fein to stroke his own ego is an obstacle to reconciliation on the island of Ireland
Is this news? That’s like the King defending the actions of King Henry 8th. What would he be expected to do? Say it was all pointless and a waste of time? Christ – journalism scrapes the barrel in this country
Hardly surprising. He was the head of the IRA and personally ordered murders
Possibly the most cynical human being on earth
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