Gerry Adams tells libel case IRA membership was ‘not a path I took’
Gerry Adams has said IRA membership was “not a path I took” as he was quizzed about his past comments and republican links during a libel trial.
The 76-year-old said an attempt was being made to “smother” the jury in history as he was asked to recall events during The Troubles and the peace process.
The former Sinn Fein leader said he would not “speculate” on IRA members or its rules while in the witness box as part of his defamation case against the BBC.
Asked if there was no official record of IRA membership, and Mr Adams said he supposed there was not.
“It wasn’t a path that I took,” he said, adding that he instead joined Sinn Fein.
He also told the court that Sinn Fein “was not the political wing of any organisation” and said the claim that the party takes orders from “someone in Connolly House” is “ridiculous”.
Mr Adams gave evidence for a fifth day as part of his defamation case against the BBC at the High Court in Dublin.
He claims a BBC Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of the former Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson.
Mr Donaldson, who had worked for Sinn Fein, was shot dead in Donegal in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent for 20 years.
Mr Adams denies any involvement.
In 2009, the Real IRA admitted killing Mr Donaldson.
The Spotlight programme was broadcast in September 2016.
The trial opened last week with barrister for Mr Adams, Tom Hogan SC, saying the former Sinn Fein president’s reputation as a “peacemaker” had suffered an “unjustified” attack because of the broadcast of the BBC programme.
On Tuesday, Mr Adams engaged in tense exchanges with barrister for the BBC Paul Gallagher SC on his knowledge of the IRA and about quotes attributed to him in media interviews.
He said a number of people had acknowledged publicly that they were members of the IRA but he was “not prepared to speculate in this court” on who would have been in the IRA at any time.
Mr Gallagher asked him several times if he was aware of the structures and rules of the IRA, to which Mr Adams said he had already answered the question.
“I don’t intend to speculate on any of those issues in relation to the IRA,” Mr Adams said.
Asked about who was in charge of the West Belfast brigade of the IRA in 1972, Mr Adams said: “I’m not going to speculate.”
During tense exchanges, Mr Gallagher asked Mr Adams whether his answer was that throughout the period of The Troubles, apart from people who identified themselves as members of the IRA, that he was not aware of who was in the IRA.
“You don’t seem to be prepared to accept my answers,” Mr Adams replied.
Mr Adams was asked about an IRA demand that a “senior officer of Belfast brigade” be released from Long Kesh as part of efforts to secure a ceasefire in 1972.
Mr Gallagher put it to Mr Adams that this referred to him.
“There may have been a senior officer of the Belfast Brigade released, it wasn’t me,” Mr Adams said.
Mr Gallagher asked if any senior officer of Belfast Brigade was released, and Mr Adams replied that he was “not prepared to speculate” about the status of IRA members “released or otherwise”.
When Mr Gallagher said he took his answer to mean “you are not aware”, Mr Adams said: “No, don’t take that as my answer.
“I’m saying I’m not willing to speculate.”
When pressed on whether he was not going to answer any questions in relation to the IRA, Mr Adams said an attempt was made to “smother” the jury in an awful history.
“What on earth has this got to do with Denis Donaldson?” Mr Adams said.
The jury was shown a montage of various broadcast footage of interviews with several figures, including Sean Mac Stiofain, Billy McKee and Des Long.
Mr Adams said that Mr Mac Stiofain, the “self-professed” chief of staff of the IRA, was “mistaken” to claim that he was in the IRA during a media clip shown to the jury.
Mr Adams accused the defence of seeking “to smother the jury in a back-to-back, very selective montage of elements” and who were “in most cases interviewing people who were entirely hostile to the project which I was engaged in”.
The jury were also shown a video clip of Mr Adams from 1987 where he was asked about the death of Charles McIlmurray.
“Mr McIlmurray, like anyone living in West Belfast knows, that the consequence of informing is death,” he said in the clip.
Under cross-examination from Mr Gallagher, Mr Adams said his remark was “very harsh” but was made along with other comments at a press conference including expressing his commiserations with the family of Mr McIlmurray.
He denied that the statement was made as a warning or a threat, or that he was attributing blame to Mr McIlmurray.
I don’t intend to speculate on any of those issues in relation to the IRA
Mr Adams was also asked about an interview with the Guardian in 1982 which the court heard quotes him as stating that the only complaints he had from republicans and anti-unionists about the death of politician Norman Stronge in 1981 was that he was not shot 40 years ago.
Mr Adams said his comments reflected opinion at the time, and said he himself was “shocked” by the killing.
“It’s a matter of history, it’s done,” he said.
Under questioning, he said: “I have never resiled from my view that the IRA’s campaign, whatever about elements of it, was a legitimate response to military occupation.”
He said he was not “resiling” from that position while on the stand.
Mr Adams said it was “wrong” to describe his political efforts “as being totally and absolutely related to the IRA” and said it was “not the sole work that I was about”.
He added that he supported the IRA’s “right” to an armed struggle but said he was “not uncritical” of the IRA’s individual actions.
Mr Adams said he was not aware of the practice of “disappearing” people until the peace process began and said he could not comment on why it happened, but called it “horrific”.
“It was wrong, bad enough that informers were being killed, but to disappear their bodies was totally and absolutely wrong.”
He told the court he believes he had met all the families of those who were shot and secretly buried by the IRA, with the exception of Robert Nairac.
Mr Adams was also asked about the book Say Nothing, to which he said he had not read it and that it was based on “completely discredited” tapes.
He was also asked about an interview with former Northern Ireland editor Ed Moloney, who the court heard reported on comments by Mr Adams in relation to the 1983 kidnapping of businessman Don Tidey.
The court heard he was quoted as saying that Mr Adams regretted the deaths of an Irish soldier and Garda during the rescue operation, but claimed that the Provisional IRA gunmen “were doing their duty”.
He said he had no recollection of those comments and said he “made it very very clear” that he and Sinn Fein “were opposed to what had happened”.
“The position I took up at the time was what had happened was wrong,” Mr Adams told the court.
He was asked about a clip from him at a rally at Belfast City Hall in August 1995 where he said “they haven’t gone away, you know”.
Mr Adams told the court he was responding to a heckler in the crowd who had said “bring back the IRA”.
He said it “wasn’t rehearsed” and “wasn’t a bad response” at keeping the people at the rally on board.
When shown a photo of Mr Adams wearing a black beret at the funeral of Jimmy Steele in Belfast, Mr Adams rejected Mr Gallagher’s assertion that it was “the garb worn by members of the IRA at IRA funerals”.
At one point, Mr Adams said to the BBC’s barrister “Mr Gallagher, I am not on trial here today,” to which Mr Gallagher said that his reputation was part of the hearing.
The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, continues on Wednesday.
