The former president of the Sinn Féin Irish republican party, Gerry Adams, will testify as the only witness for the defense in a civil lawsuit brought against him by three victims of Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings in the 1970s and 1990s.
A case management hearing held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on determined that Adams’ seven-day trial will be held in London between February and June 2026.
Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA, a republican paramilitary organization that operated during the last century seeking independence for Northern Ireland from British rule. Adams is being sued for symbolic damages of GBP 1 for “vindicatory purposes,” the BBC reported.
The plaintiffs are John Clark, a survivor of the 1973 Old Bailey court bombing, and Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, injured in the 1996 bombings at London’s Docklands and Manchester’s Arndale Shopping Centre.
They allege that Adams, 76, was complicit in the IRA’s bombing campaigns on the British mainland. They claim he played a role in decisions to plant explosives in 1973 and 1996 as part of a “common design to bomb the British mainland.”
The claimants plan to present evidence against him from nearly a dozen witnesses, including former IRA members and ex-security personnel, according to their attorney, Matthew Jury.
Adams, however, will be the sole witness for the defense.
“For the first time, Adams will appear in person in an English court to be cross-examined by the victims of his alleged leadership of the IRA’s terror campaign,” Jury told the BBC.