Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams wins libel case against BBC over claim he sanctioned killing

LONDON – Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams won his libel suit against the BBC on Friday over a claim that he authorized the killing of an informant inside the Irish republican movement.

A jury at the High Court in Dublin ruled in Adams’ favor and awarded him 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages. Jurors deliberated for just under seven hours after the monthlong trial before reaching a verdict, rejecting the BBC's argument that it had acted in good faith and in a “fair and reasonable” way.

Adams sued Britain’s public broadcaster over a claim in a decade-old television documentary and online article that he sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, a long-serving Sinn Fein official who acknowledged in 2005 that he had worked for British intelligence. He was shot dead at his cottage in rural Ireland four months later.

In the BBC program, broadcast in September 2016, an anonymous source claimed the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Adams gave “the final say.”

Adams denies involvement and called the allegation a “grievous smear.”

Adams’ lawyer, Paul Tweed, said outside the court that his client was “relieved and satisfied” that jurors had reached “the unequivocal conclusion that the subject allegation was highly defamatory.”

Adams, 76, is one of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland’s decades of conflict, and its peace process. He led Sinn Fein, the party linked to the Irish Republican Army, between 1983 and 2018. He has always denied being an IRA member, though former colleagues have said he was one of its leaders.

Speaking after the ruling, Adams said: “I’ve always been satisfied with my reputation. Obviously, like yourself, we all have flaws in our character, but the jury made the decision and let’s accept the outcome, and I think let’s accept what the jury said.”

Adams was able to sue in the Republic of Ireland because people there could watch the BBC Northern Ireland program.

Adam Smyth, director of BBC Northern Ireland, said the program had been made with “careful editorial processes and journalistic diligence.” He said the implications of the jury’s verdict were “profound.”

“As our legal team made clear, if the BBC’s case cannot be won under existing Irish defamation law, it is hard to see how anyone’s could, and they warned how today’s decision would hinder freedom of expression,” Smyth said.

Around 3,600 people were killed in “the Troubles,” Northern Ireland’s three decades of violence involving Irish republican and British loyalist militants and U.K. soldiers. The IRA stopped fighting and disarmed after the 1998 Good Friday peace accord largely ended the violence, though small splinter groups opposed to the peace process continued to mount occasional attacks.

A splinter group known as the Real IRA claimed responsibility in 2009 for killing Donaldson. An Irish police investigation remains ongoing.

Lawyers for the BBC argued that the documentary didn’t claim that Adams had sanctioned murder, merely putting that forward as an allegation alongside Adams’ denial. They also argued the program didn’t harm Adams’ reputation, because he was widely considered to have been an IRA commander and so had little reputation to lose.