Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has arrived at the High Court of Justice in London where a legal action alleging he was a senior member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army is due to begin.
The former Louth TD and MP for West Belfast is being sued in the High Court in London for symbolic damages of £1 by three victims of IRA bomb attacks.
It is the first time a court has been asked to adjudicate claims that Adams was a member of the IRA, something he has always denied.
The claimants allege that Adams held a “command and control” role within the Provisional IRA throughout the period of The Troubles, and that he acted with others in furtherance of a common design to bomb the British mainland.
Their lawyers are expected to argue that Adams was “directly responsible” in several roles within the IRA for decisions to plant the bombs.
Adams was previously charged with IRA membership in 1978, but the case was later dropped due to insufficient evidence.
The civil action is being brought by John Clark, who was injured in the Old Bailey bombing in 1973, along with Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured in the 1996 bombings at London’s Docklands and the Manchester Arndale shopping centre.
The three claimants used a crowdfunding page to help cover their legal costs, raising almost £110,000 (€126,000).
The case is being heard as a non-jury civil trial, meaning the standard of proof required is “on the balance of probabilities”, rather than the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt.”
In a statement issued last month, Adams described the legal action as “highly political and strategic.”
He said the claims rely on hearsay evidence from former British Army and police witnesses.
“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,” he said.
Adams, 77, is expected to give evidence in his defence next week.
Last year, he was awarded €100,000 in damages over a BBC Northern Ireland programme which alleged he had sanctioned the murder of former Sinn Féin official Denis Donaldson.
Donaldson was shot dead in Co Donegal in 2006, shortly after it emerged that he had worked as an agent for MI5 and the police for 20 years.
