Five sources corroborated a claim made by an anonymous contributor to a BBC documentary that Gerry Adams sanctioned the Provisional IRA’s killing of a British agent in 2006, the journalist behind the programme has said.
BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary on Tuesday outlined to the High Court conversations she had with various republican and security sources during her efforts to verify the claim that the former Sinn Féin leader gave the “final say” in the IRA’s decision to kill MI5 agent Denis Donaldson in 2006.
She was giving evidence on the third week of a civil trial hearing into the former Sinn Féin leader’s defamation action against the BBC.
Mr Adams claims a Spotlight programme and a related article published in 2016 defamed him by falsely accusing him of sanctioning the killing of Donaldson.
The BBC denies it defamed Mr Adams, who insists he had no involvement in the death, which dissident republicans claimed responsibility for in 2009.
Being led through her evidence by BBC counsel Eoin McCullough SC, Ms O’Leary said she met “Martin”, the anonymous source who claimed Mr Adams sanctioned Donaldson’s murder in the BBC programme, in February 2016.
She said Martin – who claimed he was in the IRA and also worked as an informant – initially made contact with her seeking to speak about elements of IRA criminality.
Ms O’Leary said Martin made the allegation against Mr Adams in their second face-to-face meeting, referencing notes that she took of the meeting.
She said Martin had a “personal motivation” in speaking about Donaldson.
On several occasions, Ms O’Leary said she was constrained in the details she could share about Martin. “It is rare to have a source where, if his identity is revealed, it is likely he will be killed,” she said.
Ms O’Leary outlined her subsequent conversations with five other sources – two republican and three security services sources – who she said made the same allegation that Mr Adams sanctioned the IRA’s killing of Donaldson.
Ms O’Leary said that once corroborated, it was “of course” in the public interest to reveal the allegation made against Mr Adams, given his status as a significant political figure.
She said that Mr Adams’s denial of the allegation was included in the programme, directly after when the allegation is outlined. “That was the fair thing to do,” said Ms O’Leary.
The journalist denied suggestions that she had “animus” towards Mr Adams. “I didn’t have an agenda against Gerry Adams,” she said.
Earlier, opening the BBC’s defence to Mr Adams’s action, Mr McCullough told the jury there was a “fundamental dispute” in the case about the meaning of the Spotlight broadcast and article.
Mr McCullough said the BBC says the programme and article do not mean that Mr Adams sanctioned and approved the murder of Donaldson.
He said the BBC reported that Martin had made the allegation to that effect, but made it clear that it was an allegation only. The broadcast made it clear that Mr Adams said the allegation was “nonsense”, said Mr McCullough.
Mr McCullough said, whatever the proper meaning, and whether its contents are right or wrong, the Spotlight programme and article were a “proper piece of investigative journalism”, and as such, the BBC was entitled to rely on the defence of fair and reasonable publication in the public interest.
He said the jury would hear that Martin gave Ms O’Leary information that would have been “irresponsible” to ignore.
Mr McCullough said that even if the jury does agree with what Mr Adams says the programme means, they should not award him damages because of the reputation he has. Mr McCullough said Mr Adams has a reputation for having been in the IRA, for having sat on its army council, and on that account, having presided over a campaign of violence in which many people were killed.
Mr McCullough said Mr Adams himself accepted in his evidence that he had a reputation for being in the IRA.
He said Mr Adams’s assertion that he had a reputation as a “peacemaker” was “just incomprehensible”. He asked the jury how Mr Adams could acknowledge that repeated allegations that he was in the IRA were “out there”, and at the same time say that his reputation was one of a “peacemaker”.
