Gerry Adams wins defamation case against BBC

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Jerry Adams, the former leader of the Shin Fein party in Ireland, won a high -level defamation against the BBC at the Supreme Court in Dublin after urging the broadcaster to his reputation as a peacemaker.

The jury in the case that lasted on Friday, Adams, granted 76, 100,000 euros as compensation from the British broadcaster for a 2016 documentary article and on the Internet that was punished for the death of Dennis Donaldson, British Mi5 agent, in 2006.

Adams sought damage of 200,000 euros and denied all the participation.

It was an amazing victory for the veteran Republican, who has always denied being a member of the Irish Republican Army, who fought to end British rule in Northern Ireland during the three -year problems, and a BBC strike.

“Taking this case relates to the status of ethics in the British broadcast,” Adams told reporters outside the court.

He added: “The license motivation will pay for this.”

Adams, President of Sinn Féin from 1983 to 2018, helped the Republicans to the Great Friday Agreement of Peace Talks that ended the problems in 1998 and still is a very respectable figure in the Republican movement.

But he was widely criticized for its proximity to the Irish Republican Army, including carrying coffins of the paramilitary forces in their funerals.

“We were disappointed with this ruling,” Adam Smith, Northern BBC director, Ireland, which broadcast the program, adding that the ruling “could hinder freedom of expression.”

He added: “We did not want to come to the court, but it was important to defend our press as we stand up to this decision.”

He said that the broadcaster would carefully study the ruling. It was not immediately clear whether that would resume-a matter that would already increase water costs, is expected to reach about 3 million pounds to 5 milliliters of £ 5. Smith said in BBC has insurance and made provisions for legal claims.

BBC has argued that he does not support the allegations that were broadcast in Lights The program and the accompanying article online, but said that their inclusion was fair and reasonable about the issue of a public interest.

Mr. Alexander Owens, the main judge, asked the jury to consider whether the program and the article means that Adams had imposed and assaulted the killing of Donaldson.

Gregory Campbell, a member of the USA -supporting unionist party, told BBC Ulyster after the ruling that it was “a whole series of people who were former members of the Irish Republican Army who claimed in the registry and doing that they served in the comfortable Irish Republican army with Jerry Adams. Are they all?”

Adams, who was wearing a Palestinian scarf of the Keviye Council under his lawsuit, told reporters that he believed that he was “a direct political intervention in the case,” which led to symmetry as Prime Minister Sir Kiir Starmer pledged to prevent compensation to him and to other people trained in the seventies.

He did not provide any evidence that supports his claim, but he insisted on “this could have been resolved a long time ago.”

A UK government spokesman immediately asked Adams to interfere in the case.

Adams also said that the BBC was “out of synchronization” with the great Friday agreement and “unprecedented to what we are on this island.”

Adams, who was a member of the Del parliament in Ireland, when the program was broadcast, described the allegations broadcast by the BBC as “dangerous distortion” and said at the beginning of the trial that he would give any award for “good reasons”.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, which said that the prosecution was confirmed by various sources, said that the case was a “satirical” attempt to wash it.

Donaldson was found killed in a cottage in Doning County, Ireland in 2006, after being exposed to Mi5 and Northern Ireland police.

The real dissident, the Irish Republican Army, said in 2009 that he killed him, but Lights The program, based on sources, claimed that the murder was the work of the temporary Irish Republican army.