Gerry Adams was “reputed to have become a member of the Army Council of the IRA”, a former attorney general has told his libel trial against the BBC.
Mr Adams is suing the BBC over what he has deemed to be a “grievous smear” made by a confidential source in a Spotlight documentary that alleged he had sanctioned the killing of a former Sinn Fein official who turned out to be an informant.
He claims a BBC Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement.
Mr Donaldson was shot dead in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent for 20 years.
In 2009, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing, and the Spotlight programme was broadcast in September 2016 while a garda investigation into the matter was ongoing.
At the High Court in Dublin on Wednesday, former Irish attorney general Michael McDowell was called as a witness to speak about Mr Adams’ reputation among the public and politicians.
Mr McDowell, a current senator who also served as Irish deputy premier and justice minister, said: “Amongst the public, he is known as a politician now who was a leading member of the IRA and who was active in the IRA during the period of its armed struggle against the forces of law and order on this island.”
He added: “He is reputed to have been a chief negotiator in – I think – 1974 between the provisional movement and the British government and thereafter he was reputed to have a role in the Belfast IRA as its commanding officer.
“Later he was reputed to have become a member of the Army Council of the IRA.”
Under questioning from Paul Gallagher SC, for the BBC, Mr McDowell said he had “never met anybody involved in the political process or in the media” who did not believe Mr Adams was a member of the IRA in the past – apart from Mr Adams himself as well as Sinn Fein politicians Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris who issued a public statement denying it.
The witness explained to the jury that he became attorney general in 1999 and was involved in the the Northern Ireland peace process following the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Gallagher, also a former attorney general, asked Mr McDowell about the view of the Irish government of Mr Adams during the peace process.
He answered: “During that period, the view of the Government based on intelligence briefings was that Mr Adams was a member of the Army Council and was a leading member of the Army Council.”
Asked about his reputation among politicians more generally, he added: “I’ve never met any politician who did not believe he was a leading member of the IRA during its ‘armed struggle’, as it calls it, and thereafter he was a dominant figure within Army Council.”
Mr McDowell told the jury that the IRA had conducted “extensive operations” in the Republic of Ireland, including weapons training, bomb making, fundraising, kidnapping and intimidation.
He said this was done in support of the organisation “north of the border”.
Mr McDowell also explained his knowledge of how the IRA treated informants.
“In general terms, the IRA executed anybody from its own ranks who it found to be what they called a ‘tout’ for the British – or an informer.
“They frequently arrested people – or kidnapped them north of the border, interrogated them in a safe house, applied torture to them, and brought them south of the border and shot them in the back of the head and laid them in a ditch south of the border.”
The trial continues.
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