LAST UPDATE | 30 Apr

A BBC PROGRAMME in which Gerry Adams claims he was defamed has been shown to the jury in the High Court in Dublin this afternoon.

The former Sinn Féin president is suing the British broadcaster over what he asserts are defamatory claims made in a 2016 Spotlight programme on who sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, who was a British spy.

Sinn Féin member Mr Donaldson, 55, was shot dead at a cottage near Glenties in Co Donegal in April 2006, months after being exposed as an informer.

Adams, who has denied the allegation that he had any involvement in ordering the murder, today called the programme an “attempted hatchet job” that was “full of inaccuracies”.

He said he was “astonished” when we watched the programme, aired in September 2016, and called some of the events detailed in the episode “bogus and wrong”. 

‘Bad, poor journalism’

The programme shown to the jury this afternoon featured an interview with an anonymous source who said he was a former agent for the Special Branch. 

The source, referred to as “Martin” on the programme, claimed that Donaldson’s shooting had been sanctioned by the leadership of the republican movement.

Spotlight journalist Jennifer O’Leary said during the broadcast that it was understood that by 2006 Adams had stepped aside from the IRA Army Council but it was Martin’s belief that he was still being consulted.

Martin said that based on his experience, murders must be approved by the political and military leadership of the IRA. When asked by O’Leary who he is referring to, he replied: “Gerry Adams, he gives the final say.”

The jury also heard extracts read from a BBC online article with the headline “Gerry Adams ‘sanctioned Denis Donaldson killing’”.

In the witness box, Adams said the programme was “bad, poor journalism”, in particular the extracts where it is claimed he had a part in Donaldson’s killing.

He said the online article is still available nine years later and that there was “an arrogance involved” from the BBC who he said gave no reason why it was still online and “encouraged other media to run with this stuff” and that the allegations gave “a stick to beat those” who wanted the peace process to work.

Adams said the aired allegations that the IRA had killed Donaldson and that he had sanctioned it created the impression that republicans had “been led up the garden path” by the peace process, because the IRA had told members to lay down arms and take up political or community work in the months before his murder.

He said he put out a statement denying the allegations in the programme and contacted well-known libel lawyer Paul Tweed who sent letters to the BBC asking them to correct the record.

“We invited the BBC to retract what was said,” Adams said.

 Adams ‘did not have many dealings’ with Donaldson

Earlier today, Adams said he “liked but did not have many dealings” with the British spy who was in the IRA. The former Sinn Féin leader said he operated at a different level in the party to Denis Donaldson, who worked as a Sinn Féin official in Northern Ireland.

Adams has launched a defamation case after claims were made in a BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme in 2016 over who sanctioned the killing of Donaldson, who was a British spy.

Opening the case yesterday, barrister for Adams Tom Hogan SC said the reputation of Adams as a “peacemaker” suffered an “unjustified” attack due to the broadcast of the BBC programme.

At the end of the day, Adams entered the witness box and described his early political awakenings in Belfast in the 1960s. Continuing his evidence today, Adams told the court he first met Donaldson in H-11 in Long Kesh.

He said Donaldson was not an internee and was a sentenced prisoner who “had been there a long time”. He was not sure what Donaldson did after his release but believed he did some “international work” before becoming an administrator for Sinn Féin.

Asked whether he was an employee of Sinn Féin, Adams replied “I would say so”.

“I liked the guy and I knew him and I knew his wife and his daughter, Jane, but I didn’t really have many dealings with him,” Adams said. “I would have been working at another level within the party.”

He said that in 2002, a convoy of RUC land rovers arrived at Stormont, raided the Sinn Féin office and arrested Donaldson and others. The arrests were made in relation to a claim of a republican spy-ring at Stormont, which Adams said was “complete nonsense”.

Reveal that Donaldson was an agent

After IRA decommissioning took place in the summer of 2005, he said Donaldson and others who had been arrested had the charges against them dropped in November.

“But quite quickly after the charges were dropped it was revealed that he was an agent.”

Adams told the court: “Denis Donaldson got a visit from the PSNI and he was given a piece of paper that alerted him to the fact that he was going to be named as an agent. The only people who could have revealed that were the people who were using him, his handlers, so the special branch who he was acting as an agent for.”

Adams said Donaldson told Declan Kearney of Sinn Féin, who then informed him. He then asked Kearney to get in touch with Donaldson and “ascertain the truth of this”.

He was interviewed by two senior members of the party, where Donaldson acknowledged that the was an informer and he was dismissed, the court heard.

“Denis acknowledged that he had been an agent and he had been an agent for 20 years,” Adams said.

He said he was not in touch with Donaldson after he left the party and said he was “shocked” when he received a phone call from the British secretary of state in April 2006 to say that Donaldson had been found dead.

By the time he got in touch with Donaldson’s family, it had been made public that Donaldson had been killed.

“Personally I think that Denis Donaldson was a victim of the conflict,” he told the court. “I don’t see any other way of describing it.”

Donaldson’s family members observed proceedings via a videolink.