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A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary.
Adams, 77, is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996.
They allege that he was a member of the IRA and, for a period, sat on its army council, which Adams denies.
On Tuesday, Shane O’Doherty, who joined the IRA aged 15 and received 30 life sentences in 1976 for a letter- bombing campaign, told the high court that Adams was a senior figure in the organisation.
Asked by Anne Studd KC, counsel for the claimants, about a photograph of Adams carrying the coffin of Michael Kane, an IRA volunteer who died after a premature explosion in Belfast, O’Doherty appeared to describe the defendant as “the supreme leader”. He added: “In an IRA honour guard funeral those would be usually his closest comrades in the IRA who would do him the honour of the send-off.”
Asked by Studd whether anyone would be wearing a beret, as Adams was in the photograph, if they were not a member of the IRA, O’Doherty replied: “Not a chance, in those years, because it would bring the full weight of the authorities [down on you]. You don’t want to be stopped with a beret or caught with a beret.”
He also said it was “significant” that Adams gave the funeral oration.
While in prison O’Doherty wrote a number of letters apologising to his victims, publicly renounced the activities of the IRA and called for a ceasefire. He was released from prison in 1989 and has since been a persistent critic of Sinn Féin as well as the IRA.
Asked by the judge, Mr Justice Swift, whether a 1970 newspaper article about the arrest of 17 people in army raids that named Adams as an IRA commander in Belfast was, in his opinion, accurate, O’Doherty replied: “Yes.”
Edward Craven KC, representing Adams, asked O’Doherty whether he had any first-hand knowledge of his client’s involvement in the three bombings under scrutiny in the case.
He responded: “None whatsoever.” However, O’Doherty claimed to have “second-hand” knowledge, having been close to Martin McGuinness, who like him was from Derry. McGuinness was an IRA commander who was later prominent in Sinn Féin and the peace process alongside Adams.
The trial continues.
