Two former police officers have testified in the High Court that Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin leader, was the leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The evidence was given during a civil trial in which Adams is being sued for symbolic damages of £1 each by three men who allege he was responsible for IRA bombings in which they were injured.
Tim Hanley, a retired detective for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), stated in his written witness statement: 'There is no question in my mind that Adams was the leader of the PIRA [Provisional IRA]; that’s what all the intelligence concluded.' He added that Adams led the organisation throughout the Troubles from the early 1970s until the mid-2000s.
A second witness, a former RUC special branch officer anonymised as 'witness B', said: 'A great deal of intelligence which I read communicated, both explicitly and implicitly, that Adams was a senior member of the IRA army council and the de facto leader of the IRA.' He claimed that all his colleagues in RUC special branch believed this to be the case.
Adams denies ever having been a member of the IRA or having sat on its army council. His barristers questioned the witnesses about the lack of prosecution, given that IRA membership was a criminal offence. Witness B explained that very few were prosecuted for membership alone, and that intelligence could often be inaccurate.
