Former MEP and TD Clare Daly has initiated legal proceedings alleging she was defamed in a newspaper article published in the weeks before last year’s European Parliament elections.
Ms Daly is suing over a Sunday Times story regarding her alleged links to a Lithuanian diplomat, Algirdas Paleckis, who was prosecuted by the Lithuanian security services for passing information to Russia.
The article, published on May 28th, 2024, alleged Ms Daly had, in November 2021, provided Mr Paleckis, then under house arrest pending an appeal, with the email address of dissident republican Liam Campbell. It alleged that the two men were later in contact.
In 2021, Mr Campbell, from Dundalk, Co Louth, was fighting an attempt to extradite him to Lithuania on foot of terrorism charges which were later dropped.
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In 2009, he was one of four men found civilly liable in a case taken by families of victims of the 1998 Omagh bombing. He was never prosecuted in connection with the bombing, in which 29 people died.
Ms Daly, under the Independents 4 Change banner, contested the European Parliament elections last June, but failed to hold the seat she had won five years earlier.
She claims the Sunday Times article had defamatory meanings.
In a statement issued to RTÉ News when the article was originally published, she said she was taking the matter “very seriously” on the eve of the election and was seeking legal advice.
“Any dealings I have had with any political prisoners has always been anchored in the work of the cross-party Oireachtas group on prisoner conditions and reinforcing the peace process, ” her statement said.
“I’ve known Liam Campbell through that work since 2012 and attended the trial of his brother Michael in Lithuania along with TDs Éamon Ó Cuív, Martin Ferris and Maureen O’Sullivan.”
Ms Daly said: “I am taking this very seriously in the context of foreign interference in the elections.”
Her solicitors, Dore & Company, had asked the newspaper to remove the article from its website and filed High Court proceedings this week after the newspaper refused to do so.
The intended action is against Times Newspapers Limited, Times Media Limited and News UK and Ireland Limited.
The matter will come before the High Court next week via a pre-trial application on behalf of Ms Daly for permission to serve notice of the proceedings outside the jurisdiction on London-headquartered Times Newspapers Ltd, the publisher of the Sunday Times.
