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Agence France-Presse

Three victims of IRA bombings in England on Friday dropped their civil claim for damages against former Irish republican leader Gerry Adams, whom they had sought to hold personally responsible for orchestrating the blasts.
The trio – who were injured in IRA bomb blasts in the 1970s and 1990s – had also sought to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Adams was a senior member of the Irish Republican Army.
But on the very last day of the two-week trial, their lawyer Anne Studd told the High Court in London the case would be discontinued.
The three bomb victims had sued Adams for a symbolic £1 (US$1.33) in damages.
“The parties have agreed … that the claim is discontinued,” said a statement read by Judge Jonathan Swift. He made no order as to costs.
But the lawyers for the claimants said in a statement that the three men had been forced to drop the case due to a procedural issue, calling the outcome “deeply unfair”.

Adams, the former president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s former political wing, was not in court on Friday, having attended earlier in the week.
Three people died in the three bombings – in London in 1973, and in London and Manchester in 1996 – and scores more were injured.
The three claimants alleged that Adams was a senior IRA figure for more than 25 years who “acted with others in furtherance of a common design to bomb the British mainland”.
“These allegations are untrue. I was never a member of the IRA or its Army Council,” Adams said in his witness statement.
“I do not defend all the IRA actions,” added Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA.
He also “categorically” denied involvement in the attacks.
“To be clear, I had no involvement in or advance knowledge of the bombings,” he said.
It was the first time the 77-year-old – who has been embroiled in several legal disputes over his role in the Troubles – testified in an English court.

More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, the three-decades-long violent sectarian conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland that ignited in the late 1960s.
The unrest largely ended following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
After the court announcement, Adams told a press conference that he “welcomed” the decision to drop the claim, standing by a mural of the late IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.
It brought to “an emphatic end a case that should never have been brought”, he said, adding he had “nothing but sympathy for the claimants”.
But the claimants said through their lawyers they had been forced to act after the judge suggested the proceedings could amount to an abuse of process, meaning they could become liable for huge legal costs.
“Due to this extraordinary series of events, and faced with even a small risk of life-changing financial consequences, the claimants had no realistic choice but to accept the defendant’s offer,” law firm McCue Jury and Partners, which represented the three men, said in a statement.
“The claimants consider this deeply unfair.”

Plaintiff Barry Laycock said he was “completely devastated” at the discontinuation of the legal action.
Adams became president of Sinn Fein in 1983 and was elected as an MP in Northern Ireland from 1983 to 1992 and again from 1997 to 2011.
However, he never took his seat in the UK’s House of Commons, in line with the party’s policy of abstentionism.
He then sat in the Irish parliament between 2011 and 2020.
He stepped down as leader of Sinn Fein in 2018. Although interned twice in the 1970s, Adams has never been found guilty of IRA membership.
In 2020, he had convictions for attempting to escape jail quashed by the UK Supreme Court.
Last year, he won a libel case in Dublin against the BBC over a report containing allegations he was involved in killing a British spy.


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Britain

IRA bomb victims drop civil court claim against Gerry Adams

Former Irish republican leader Gerry Adams arrives for a press conference in Belfast on Friday. Photo: AFP

A man attaches a sign with the message “Gerry time for justice” outside the High Court in London on March 11. Photo: Reuters

Former Irish republican leader Gerry Adams arrives at the High Court in central London on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Irish republicans protest outside the High Court in London on March 10. Photo: EPA

Northern Ireland’s Gerry Adams tells bombings trial he was never in IRA

Former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on Tuesday. Photo: PA Wire / dpa

People wave Irish flags outside the High Court in London as Adams attends a civil case. Photo: Reuters

Northern Ireland’s Gerry Adams in UK court for trial over IRA bombings

Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams arrives on Monday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where a civil claim is being brought against him. Photo: via AP

Barry Laycock (right), a survivor of the 1996 Manchester IRA bombing, arrives at court in London on Monday with his lawyer ahead of a trial which aims to hold former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams liable for IRA bombings. Photo: Reuters

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The case was discontinued on the last day of a two-week trial, after what the claimants’ lawyers called an ‘extraordinary series of events’


The case was discontinued on the last day of a two-week trial, after what the claimants’ lawyers called an ‘extraordinary series of events’.


Crime

Terrorism

Ireland

IRA bomb victims drop civil court claim against Gerry Adams

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The case was discontinued on the last day of a two-week trial, after what the claimants’ lawyers called an ‘extraordinary series of events’

The case was discontinued on the last day of a two-week trial, after what the claimants’ lawyers called an ‘extraordinary series of events’