RTÉ News: Allegations against Gerry Adams 'thoroughly investigated', court told

Story from RTÉ News:

The High Court has heard that allegations made in a BBC Spotlight programme about the former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams were corroborated by as many as five other people.

Lawyers for the BBC told the court the allegations in the programme were not based on a single source but were "thoroughly investigated" and corroborated.

Senior Counsel Eoin McCullough was opening the defence case on behalf of the BBC in the defamation case taken against it by Mr Adams.

Mr Adams alleges he was defamed in a 2016 Spotlight programme and a subsequent online article, which he says falsely claimed that he sanctioned the killing of former senior Sinn Féin official Denis Donaldson.

Mr Donaldson was shot dead in 2006, months after admitting being an informer for the police and MI5 over two decades.

This morning the jury was told that Mr Adams' case was now completed after it was shown a montage of television coverage including Gerry Adams involvement in the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement and his meetings with world and Irish political leaders during that time.

Eoin McCullough said the BBC would be using the defence of fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest as allowed for under defamation law. He said the BBC was given information that "would have been irresponsible to ignore" by a source referred to as "Martin" in the programme.

However he said all the information contained in the programme including the allegations against Gerry Adams was thoroughly investigated and had been corroborated by up to five people including two republicans and three security sources.

He said the programme was the result of "a detailed and painstaking editorial process".

He said the programme also made every effort to find out what Gerry Adams had to say in response to the allegation and included it wherever it could, including a statement from his solicitor delivered on the morning of the broadcast which was included almost in its entirety in the programme and on the website along with a video clip of him denying the contents of the programme.

Mr McCullough earlier told the jury a journalist is entitled to publish material that is in the public interest as long as it is done in good faith and acts fairly and reasonably.

Mr McCullough also said that Gerry Adams had acknowledged himself that allegations had been made for years about him that he was in the IRA and was on the army council.

"He acknowledged his reputation from his own mouth," he said.

He said there had never been any public condemnation by Gerry Adams of IRA actions, so for him to tell the jury in this case he had the reputation of a peacemaker was "incomprehensible", Mr McCullough said.

"He says the programme said he sanctioned a murder, he cannot claim damages on that because that is precisely the reputation he had," Mr McCullough said, adding "his reputation in 2000, in 2005, in 2015 and now is that of a person who organised and approved violence".

The BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O'Leary told the court she had "no agenda whatsoever " against Gerry Adams when she made the programme.

The Cork-born journalist who has worked for the BBC since 2011 outlined how she had to be careful about what she said in the witness box about her source for the programme who was named 'Martin' in the broadcast because he was "likely to be killed" if she said anything that could lead to his identification.

She referred to another one-time IRA officer who gave information to the authorities and to a defamation trial who she said was "found dead on a border road with his tongue cut out".

She told the jury she first heard an allegation about IRA involvement in the killing of Mr Donaldson while researching another story in 2015.

A report by the Chief Constable in October that year had said the IRA was still in existence and Mr Adams had responded by saying they had "left the stage".

She had a meeting with a republican source who she named 'Republican Source B’ who told her the IRA had killed Mr Donaldson and not dissident republicans.

She said the source told her the Donaldson killing "was ours" and that Thomas "Slab" Murphy who was a renowned IRA leader with a fearsome reputation had been "going mad that Donaldson got off".

Ms O'Leary said a security source had also mentioned to her that the IRA was behind the Donaldson murder but she was not working on the story at the time.

She later met a person referred to as Martin in the programme who contacted her to talk abut IRA criminality.

She said after meeting him she was able to verify that he was who he said he was.

She said she was really constrained in the details she could talk about because it "would be too close to him".

She said Martin told her he had been an IRA informer and had spoken about the IRA being behind the murder of Mr Donaldson.

She said there was a personal element to his motivation for talking about Denis Donaldson but she was not able to reveal what that was.

At a second meeting with Martin a couple of weeks later in February 2016 her notes record him as saying "Adams sanctioned it…nothing done without his say so…this is how we deal with informers…part of team trust each other 100%…part of green book, punishable by death."

She said the "intelligence war" was a timely issue in Northern Ireland at the time and how informers were dealt with by the State and the IRA.

"It was a vital programme in the public interest," she said adding that an allegation has been made about a significant political figure.

Ms O’ Leary said she had gone to at least another 15 people including republican and security sources to test and corroborate the allegations made in the programme which was about more than Gerry Adams.

She outlined further interviews with republican and security sources who she said corroborated the allegation made by Martin.

She went back to a previous source described as 'Republican source B' and notes of her meeting with that source indicate he told her relation to dissidents that "the IRA can put them away and take them out whenever they want like playing with cards".

The note also says that "Adams gave the order to shoot Donaldson".

She also read from notes of a meeting with a third source, whom she described as a reliable security source who would have had "access to and eyes on intelligence reports at the time of the events".

She said this source said Mr Adams would have had the final say.

Notes of a meeting with another security source quoted the person as saying it "goes without saying sanctioned by GA".

Ms O’Leary said after this Gerry Adams was sent an offer of a right to reply but her efforts to corroborate the story continued on.

She said she met another republican source who said the order to kill Mr Donaldson "would have had to come from the top and Adams would have been aware".

Ms O'Leary also met another security source who she said was in post in 2006 and before had access to intelligence reports and was very knowledgeable on such matters.

Her notes of that meeting record him as saying it was "common knowledge that South Armagh (branch of the IRA) had done it".

The source said Gerry Adams was not on the IRA army council at the time but "nothing happens without running it past him".

© RTÉ 2025.