GERRY ADAMS says he will “robustly” defend himself from “unsubstantiated hearsay” in a civil case which gets under way in London in March in which three victims of IRA bombs in London will attempt to hold him responsible.
The case against Mr Adams is slated to begin on March 9 and conclude on St Patrick’s Day. Three claimants seek to hold Gerry Adams personally liable for bombings carried out by the IRA in March 1973 at the Old Bailey; in February 1996 at London Docklands; and in June 1996 in Manchester city centre.
Three people died in the three bombings and scores of people were injured. A number of former British army and RUC/PSNI officers are expected to testify that Mr Adams’ senior position in Sinn Féin throughout the years makes him responsible for the actions of the IRA.
Writing in this week’s Andersonstown News, Mr Adams says he will challenge any allegations made by former combatants as part of the claimants’ case, in which symbolic damages of one pound sterling are sought from the former Sinn Féin President.
BACK IN COURT: Gerry Adams pictured in Dublin after his landmark libel win last May against the BBC
"I had no direct or indirect involvement in these explosions and I will robustly challenge the unsubstantiated hearsay statements that are the mainstay of the claimants’ case,” writes Mr Adams in his Andersonstown News column this week.
Mr Adams says that while he has no criticism of the three people taking the case against him, he considers evidence which the claimants’ lawyers have said will be presented to be part of an anti-republican agenda by various agents of the British state.
“The British establishment and some veterans of the British army, the RUC and British intelligence services remain deeply hostile to republicans, to Sinn Fein, and to me personally,” continues Mr Adams. “Recently the British PM Keir Starmer, in defending the unlawful internment of hundreds of innocent prisoners without trial in the 1970s, pledged to deny me (and thereby other victims of unlawful internment) the right to redress in what amounts to an official campaign of demonisation.
“Others in the military establishment see republicans as the enemy they failed to defeat. Recent comments by the British Secretary of State Hilary Benn MP on this case underpin this view.”
Mr Adams says he’s fully behind the claimaints’ stated objectives of getting to the truth and shares their desire for an effective truth and reconciliation process. But he said the upcoming civil trial will do nothing to advance those aims.
“This civil action is not a truth and reconciliation process. It is a highly political and strategic legal action. Those establishment figures who support it aim to blame republicans for the conflict while diverting attention from their role, policies, repression, repeated law breaking and interference in Irish affairs.
"I offer no criticism of the claimants, but those people who support this case from the shadows are wedded to the past and unable to accept the new reality of our island moving towards self-determination and unity.”
You can read Gerry Adams' column in this Thursday's edition of the Andersonstown News.
