Gerry Adams ‘must have approved Mountbatten’s murder’, court told

Gerry Adams must have approved the IRA’s assassination of Lord Mountbatten, a veteran investigative journalist has claimed in court.

John Ware claimed a senior figure in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) told him of intelligence saying the King’s great-uncle could not have been murdered “without the knowledge and approval” of Mr Adams.

He claimed Brian Fitzsimons, the former head of the RUC special branch in Belfast, also told him that intelligence reports said Mr Adams had organised a wave of bombings following his release from Maze prison, Co Down, in 1977.

The documentary-maker added that police sources and former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army led him to believe Mr Adams served on its army council from the late 1970s until 2005.

Mr Ware, who has made several TV programmes about the Troubles, was giving evidence in a civil claim against the former Sinn Féin president, which alleges Mr Adams played a “pivotal role” in the Provisional IRA and was liable for orchestrating its bombings. The High Court heard Mr Ware’s witness statement in London on Monday.

Lord Mountbatten was killed when the IRA blew up his lobster boat during a holiday in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in August 1979.

The attack also killed Nicholas Knatchbull, his teenage grandson, and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old deckhand. Lady Brabourne, the mother of Lord Mountbatten’s son-in-law, was also on the boat and died from her injuries the next day. The others on board survived.

Mr Adams, 77, has spent decades rejecting claims that he was a leading figure in the paramilitary group, or had any involvement in terrorist activity.

He “emphatically, unequivocally and categorically denies” any involvement in the bombings or being a member of the IRA, his lawyer told the court.

Three victims of three IRA attacks have been the case against Mr Adams, alleging that he is liable for damages for the injuries they suffered by virtue of his affiliation and leadership role in the IRA.

The claimants are John Clark, a victim of the 1973 Old Bailey bombing in London, Jonathan Ganesh, who was wounded in the 1996 London Docklands bombing, and Barry Laycock, a victim of the 1996 Arndale shopping centre bombing in Manchester.

They are suing Mr Adams for a symbolic £1 in compensation for “vindicatory purposes”.

Adams’ denial ‘grated’ with IRA members

In his statement, Mr Ware said he made a documentary for ITV’s World In Action (WIA) in 1983 that focused on Mr Adams because he “was one of the single most influential strategists in the Republican movement”.

He said Mr Adams’s denial of being an IRA member “so obviously lacked credibility that they struck me and WIA as a flat lie”.

He claimed that former and serving Provisional IRA members agreed to give interviews for the programme because they resented this denial.

“Invariably, some of them thought that Adams had sold out by virtue of his political strategy, but the principal motivation for many Provisional IRA interviewees was their complete and utter astonishment at Adams’s brazen, unequivocal and unambiguous denial of his role in the IRA,” his statement said.

“It clearly grated with many of them that when Adams said that he strongly supported the armed struggle, his denial of actual Provisional IRA membership allowed him to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions.

“In short, they saw Adams’s denial of Provisional IRA membership as insufferably hypocritical.”

Mr Adams has attended each day of the case, flanked throughout by several security guards. He is due to start giving evidence on Tuesday.

The trial before Mr Justice Swift is expected to end this week.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]