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A civil lawsuit accusing former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams of being personally responsible for IRA car bombings in London and Manchester is set to begin in London. Initiated by three men who suffered injuries in these attacks, the case will be heard by Mr Justice Swift at the Royal Courts of Justice and is expected to last seven days. The plaintiffs are pursuing a symbolic £1 in damages, primarily for “vindicatory purposes.”
The claimants include John Clark, injured in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, both wounded in the 1996 bombings at London’s Docklands and Manchester’s Arndale Shopping Centre, respectively. Notably, these three bombings mark the first and last IRA attacks carried out on British soil. The 1973 attack involved a car bomb transported by ferry from Belfast to Liverpool, injuring over 200 people and causing significant damage. Decades later, two deadly bombings struck London and Manchester in 1996, with the Manchester explosion described as the most powerful bomb to detonate in Britain since World War Two.
The legal team representing the victims plans to present testimony from a range of witnesses, including former IRA members, retired police officers, and military personnel. Two witnesses will testify anonymously and be shielded from public view. Gerry Adams, aged 77, will provide his defense testimony next week. He has consistently denied any direct or indirect involvement in the bombings and has challenged the evidence as largely composed of hearsay, stating in the Andersonstown News: “I anticipate a number of witnesses will give hearsay evidence that because I was a senior republican during the conflict I must be responsible for these specific events… I had no direct or indirect involvement in these explosions… I will robustly challenge the unsubstantiated hearsay statements that are the mainstay of the claimants’ case.”
The lawsuit represents the first occasion Adams will be cross-examined in an English court regarding his alleged leadership role in the IRA. The judge’s ruling on Adams’s liability will be made on the balance of probabilities. Launched in 2022, just prior to the implementation of the Legacy Act which temporarily barred new civil claims linked to the Troubles, the case continues amid efforts to reverse that legislation. The claimants have raised over £100,000 via crowdfunding to support their legal challenge, emphasizing that their fight extends beyond personal reparation to represent all victims of IRA violence. Under a pre-trial decision, Adams will not be able to reclaim his legal costs from the claimants, which are believed to be substantial if he successfully defends the action.
Throughout the Troubles, the IRA was responsible for approximately 1,700 deaths. While Adams was charged with IRA membership in 1978, those charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. His only convictions related to the Troubles—two attempted prison escapes while interned without trial in the 1970s—were overturned in 2020. Adams has previously been questioned about his alleged IRA involvement during legal proceedings, including the 2019 Ballymurphy inquest in Belfast and a libel case against the BBC in Dublin last year
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