Former politician tells court he was never a member of the IRA in case brought by surviving victims of republican bombings
“A
very happy St Patrick’s Day,” said Gerry Adams, as he took his seat in the stand at court 16 in the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday. Mr Justice Smith hadn’t quite caught what the defendant said, and asked him to repeat himself.
“Oh that’s very kind of you,” the judge stammered when he finally worked it out. The green tie and small sprig of shamrock in Adams’s lapel – worn alongside a Palestinian flag pin – ought perhaps to have been a clue.
Adams used to spend 17 March at the White House, glad-handing a succession of thematically dressed presidents and supportive senators of Irish extraction. This year, though, the former Sinn Féin president had a prior engagement in a British courtroom.
