Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>, does not equate to membership of the IRA.<\/p>\n\u201cSinn F\u00e9in is a political party that seeks a whole range of political objectives, including an end to partition and Irish unity. Throughout my life, opponents of Sinn F\u00e9in have repeatedly sought to conflate Sinn F\u00e9in with the IRA. As I have always stated, Sinn F\u00e9in and the IRA are separate organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams wished the judge, Mr Justice Swift, \u201ca very happy St Patrick\u2019s Day\u201d after entering the witness box on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The judge later admonished Adams when the defendant said: \u201cCan I just say? I see Mr Laycock in court today; I was extremely moved by his testimony.\u201d Swift told Adams not to make statements and to stick to answering questions.<\/p>\n
Cross-examining Adams on the behalf of the claimants, Sir Max Hill KC put it to him that he had \u201cchosen to stand by the IRA\u201d over a long period. The former Sinn F\u00e9in leader replied: \u201cIf your neighbourhood was invaded and occupied some patriotic Englishmen would form themselves in some sort of a resistance movement \u2026 I am glad that there is a peace process but I do not distance myself from the IRA, while being very, very clear that there were dastardly things that were done that should never have been done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill said: \u201cI suggest that you stand by the IRA because you were a member.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams replied: \u201cI stand by the African National Congress [ANC] but there\u2019s no suggestion I\u2019m a member of them. I stand by the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation] but there\u2019s no suggestion I\u2019m a member of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point Hill accused Adams of \u201crewriting history\u201d when the defendant insisted that a delegation of which he was a part, which held talks with the UK government in 1972, was made up entirely of Sinn F\u00e9in members.<\/p>\n
Hill said that Sean Mac St\u00edof\u00e1in, whom Adams had previously acknowledged was the \u201cself-professed\u201d chief of staff of the IRA and who also attended the talks, had written in his 1975 book that Adams and others were nominated to be part of the delegation as representatives of the IRA.<\/p>\n
In his written statement, Adams said: \u201cAlthough I deny categorically the allegations made by the claimants of my involvement in those bombings in any way, nothing in this statement should be taken as criticism of the claimants, or as any attempt to deny or diminish their awful experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerry Adams has told the high court that opponents of Sinn F\u00e9in have repeatedly sought to conflate the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-480852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}