UN could chair NI truth commission, says Adams

United Nations officials could chair an independent truth commission probing killings carried out during the North’s Troubles, Gerry Adams suggested tonight.

As he shared a public platform with the father of a 12-year-old boy killed in the 1993 IRA Warrington bombing, the Sinn Féin president said the formation in May of a power sharing executive of unionists and nationalists at Stormont was a remarkable achievement following the violence and division which dogged the North for decades.

However, he also called for a victim-centred truth process to help Northern Ireland deal with its bloody past.

That process, he proposed, should involve all people, including those in England and the Republic of Ireland, bereaved or maimed during the Troubles.

“A truth process must reach out to these people,” he argued.

“One way of achieving an independent process is to have an international inquiry. The United Nations or another reputable agency could be involved.

“In Ireland many of the victims groups are looking at this proposition for an Independent International Truth Commission and I have met them on this. I think there is merit in this idea.

“Sinn Féin will wait until the families and groups involved have concluded their deliberations before coming to our own decisions on this matter.”

Mr Adams was taking part in a debate in London’s Canary Wharf where the IRA set off a bomb killing two people in 1996 after its two-year-old ceasefire collapsed.

Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim died along with three-year-old Johnathan Ball in the 1993 Warrington bomb attack, also took part in the debate.