Garda commissioner in bid to stop two officers having to give evidence in Gerry Adams libel case

Gerry Adams is suing the BBC for damages for defamation of character following an allegation on TV programme 'Spotlight' in September 2016. Picture: File 

Garda commissioner Drew Harris is attempting to stop two of his senior officers having to give evidence in a libel case taken by Gerry Adams against the BBC.

The case begins in the High Court before a jury and Mr Justice Alex Owens next Tuesday.

Witness summonses have been issued to a superintendent and a Garda inspector, both of whom have been subpoenaed to give evidence at the trial, Mr Justice Mark Heslin was told in the High Court on Friday.

Mr Justice Heslin, in a brief ex-parte application, granted the Garda chief liberty to issue a motion returnable to next Tuesday in which he seeks to block the compulsory legal directions to his officers to attend and give evidence at the trial.

The former Sinn Féin leader is suing the BBC for damages for defamation of character following an allegation on the British broadcaster’s Northern Ireland Spotlight programme in September 2016 that he had sanctioned the 2006 killing of the IRA West Belfast informer Denis Donaldson.

Mr Adams has denied that and has described it as totally false.

The claim was made on the programme by an anonymous man, said to be a former member of the IRA and Sinn Féin and then working for the British. 

Three years after the former Sinn Féin official’s murder, the Real IRA claimed responsibility.

It has already been reported in the media that gardaí had no evidence to support the claims that were made by the source during the Spotlight programme, claims that had caused a political storm at the time.

The previous court orders directing the two officers to attend the trial had been granted to Mr Adams’s legal team of Tom Hogan and Declan Doyle, senior counsel, who appear for him with barrister John Kerr.

Former attorney general Paul Gallagher and Eoin McCullough, senior counsel, appear for the BBC with barrister Hugh McDowell, son of former minister for justice Michael McDowell.