{"id":377812,"date":"2026-03-10T14:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/377812\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:40:16","slug":"a-1-pound-lawsuit-puts-gerry-adams-alleged-ira-role-on-trial-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/377812\/","title":{"rendered":"A 1-pound lawsuit puts Gerry Adams\u2019 alleged IRA role on trial in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Former Sinn F\u00e9in leader Gerry Adams<\/a> was accused in a London court Monday of being a leader in the Irish Republican Army responsible for three of the paramilitary group\u2019s suspected bombings in England.<\/p>\n

Adams is being sued in London’s High Court<\/a> for allegedly being directly responsible and complicit for decisions by the Provisional IRA to detonate bombs in England in 1973 and 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant carefully draws a distinction between being a member of \u2018the Army\u2019 and being a member of Sinn F\u00e9in,” attorney Anne Studd said. \u201cThat was a distinction without a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Studd represents three men wounded in the bombings.<\/p>\n

The allegation against Adams is an old one, but this is the first time a court is being asked to decide if it’s true.<\/p>\n

Adams is one of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland<\/a> \u2019s decades of conflict. He led the IRA-linked political party Sinn F\u00e9in between 1983 and 2018 and helped broker the 1998 Good Friday peace accord. He has always denied being an IRA member, though some former colleagues have said he was one of its leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing that I am guilty of is being an Irish republican committed to ending British rule in our country and seeking to unite the people of Ireland on the basis of freedom, equality, peace and solidarity,\u201d Adams said after the opening day of the trial.<\/p>\n

The claimants are seeking vindication \u2014 not money. Adams is being sued for the nominal sum of 1 pound ($1.33).<\/p>\n

The trio claims Adams was a member of the IRA’s decision-making Army Council and was as responsible as the men who planted the explosives during \u201cthe Troubles<\/a>,\u201d the three decades of violence involving Irish republican and British loyalist militants and U.K. soldiers. Some 3,600 people were killed, most in Northern Ireland, though the IRA also set off bombs in England.<\/p>\n

John Clark, a police officer, had shrapnel lodged in his head and hand from the 1973 Old Bailey courthouse bombing in London. Jonathan Ganesh suffered psychologically from the 1996 London Docklands bombing. Barry Laycock was left 50% disabled, suffered emotionally and struggled financially from the 1996 Arndale shopping center bombing in Manchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no doubt that the defendant contributed to the peace in Northern Ireland, but the claimants say that on the evidence, he also contributed to the war,\u201d Studd said.<\/p>\n

Adams, who is expected to testify in his defense during the nonjury trial due to conclude next week, \u201cemphatically, unequivocally and categorically denies that he was ever a member of the IRA,\u201d attorney Edward Craven said.<\/p>\n

Adams was never charged with the bombings or even arrested on suspicion of being connected to them, Craven said.<\/p>\n

The 77-year-old was charged with being an IRA member in 1978, but the case was later dropped because of a lack of evidence.<\/p>\n

Adams won a 100,000 ($116,000) libel verdict<\/a> last year against the BBC<\/a> over a claim in a television documentary that he authorized the killing of an informant inside the Irish republican movement.<\/p>\n

Craven said the claimants had a mountain to climb to prove their case and they had not even arrived at the foothills.<\/p>\n

He said that Adams sympathized with and shared the IRA\u2019s goals and sought to justify their actions, though he didn’t support all those acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes him, in the eyes of some people, a deeply controversial figure,\u201d Craven said. “It does not mean he was factually responsible for the bombings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Former Sinn F\u00e9in leader Gerry Adams was accused in a London court Monday of being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[173906,79,173907,18,9618,19,17,6439,130,149261,234,235,133415,47],"class_list":{"0":"post-377812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-anne-studd","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-edward-craven","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-gerry-adams","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-irish-republican-army","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-london39s-high-court","18":"tag-personal-finance","19":"tag-personalfinance","20":"tag-provisional-ira","21":"tag-sinn-fein"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116205402411211875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}