Gerry Adams has always ‘surrounded himself with IRA prisoners’ including a long-time bodyguard who was involved in a notorious 1988 funeral attack on two British Army soldiers, the High Court has heard.
On the seventh day of a civil trial examining his alleged membership of the IRA and involvement in three bombings, Adams was asked about his association with IRA ‘murderers’ and whether he knew his current head of personal security, who has attended each day of the trial, was convicted of IRA explosives offences.
Adams, 77, the former president of Sinn Fein said: ‘You depend on the people you depend on and they are reliable.’
The court heard Adams’ described his former bodyguard and driver, Terence Clarke, as a ‘good friend of mine’ and gave a tribute to him when he died in 2000.
Clarke was sentenced to seven years in prison for assault for his role in an attack on Army corporals Derek Wood and David Howes.
The pair had erroneously driven into an IRA funeral and were suspected of being loyalist gunmen.
They were hauled from their vehicles by the crowd, stripped and driven to nearby waste ground where they were shot dead in scenes which were compared to a lynching.
The incident was filmed by television news cameras and broadcast around the world, becoming one of the defining incidents of The Troubles.
Clarke served numerous prison sentences for IRA activity.
Gerry Adams outside the High Court in London today where he gave evidence on the seventh day of his civil trial examining allegations that he was involved in three IRA bombings
David Howes and Derek Wood were ambushed when they drove into an IRA funeral in 1988. They were taken from their vehicle and shot dead.
In a written tribute on Clarke’s death, Adams said he kept a framed photograph of the pair together on his wall and described him as ‘one of my heroes’, saying he ‘loved him like a brother.’
Adams was also asked by Sir Max Hill KC, for three bomb survivors suing Adams, about his relationship with John Trainor, who is currently serving as his head of security and has accompanied him to court each day.
The court heard Trainor was previously convicted of IRA-related explosives offences and served a prison term.
Adams said he knew ‘Big John’ had previously been convicted of IRA activity.
It was also put to Adams that another member of his personal security team is a brother-in-law of Sinn Fein politician Gerry Kelly, who was convicted over his role in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing – one of the attacks central to the proceedings.
Adams said he ‘didn’t know’ and would have to check.
‘You have surrounded yourself with IRA men who have served time for very serious crimes including murder,’ Sir Max said.
Adams replied: ‘Yes. There were others who weren’t former prisoners.’
Adams and his bodyguard John Trainor at the High Court today. The court heard Mr Trainor had previously been convicted of an IRA explosives-related offence
Adams and Brendan Hughes in Long Kesh prison near Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1973
Adams is being sued for ‘vindicatory damages’ of £1 by John Clark, a victim of the IRA’s Old Bailey attack, Jonathan Ganesh, who was injured in the 1996 attack at London’s Docklands and Barry Laycock, who was injured in the attack at Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre in the same year.
They allege that, owing to his senior role in the IRA, he was ‘directly responsible’ for the attacks. Adams denies any role in the bombings and being a member of the IRA.
Giving evidence for a second day, Adams was asked about his close friendship with former IRA commander Brendan Hughes, with whom he was imprisoned in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
The court was shown a picture of the men together in Long Kesh prison in 1973 which Adams said he still had a copy of.
He told the court that he had been with Hughes, a former hunger striker, when he died in 2008 aged 59 from complications relating to the strike.
Sir Max said: ‘It is a photo showing a lifelong friendship between you and Brendan Hughes.’
Hughes was quoted as saying ‘the dogs on the street’ knew Adams was a leading IRA member, ‘and he’s standing there denying it.’
Hughes also said, in taped interviews to be released on his death, that Adams had sent a team of IRA men to the US to purchase Armalite rifles and was one of the organisers of ‘Bloody Friday’, a 1972 bombing campaign in Belfast which claimed nine lives.
Asked whether Hughes had ‘made up’, the allegations, Adams said: ‘Yes.’
He said Hughes was spurred to make the claims because he saw Adams and others ‘as traitors… saw us as winding down the war, as selling out.’
‘He sided with other armed groups that moved away from the IRA,’ he said.
‘He ended up a very sorry figure, alcohol dependent. I retain a fondness for him even though he should not have done what he did and I was disappointed in what he did.’
Earlier, Adams was accused of being ‘in denial’ over his role in the IRA.
Sir Max said: ‘You were a major, major player in the war, yet you deny it.’
He replied: ‘I obviously was president of Sinn Fein for 35 years, was deeply involved in the struggle, defended the use of armed struggle where I thought it was appropriate, looked to build Sinn Fein and the peace process and that is what led Brendan and others, quite wrongly, to take up the position they did.
‘I don’t deny – I just don’t go round boasting – that I was a person of influence and used that as best I could to move from war to peace and that thankfully is what we are enjoying.’
He also appeared to defend the IRA’s role in the conflict, adding: ‘They were undefeated, they defied all attempts to criminalise them, to coerce them, they made the right call when they eventually made the call and they had the maturity and intelligence to choose the right way forwards.’
Adams has concluded his evidence.
The trial continues.
