BBC News NI crime and justice correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The former Sinn F\u00e9in president Gerry Adams has said informer Denis Donaldson was “a victim of the conflict”, whom his state handlers viewed as being “expendable”.<\/p>\n The comments came as the 76-year-old gave evidence in his libel case against the BBC at Dublin’s High Court.<\/p>\n Mr Adams believes he was he was defamed in a 2016 programme which, he claims, was wrong to allege he sanctioned the murder of Mr Donaldson.<\/p>\n Mr Donaldson, who had worked for Sinn F\u00e9in, was shot dead in Donegal in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent for 20 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Adams, 76, denies any involvement.<\/p>\n In 2009, the Real IRA admitted killing Mr Donaldson.<\/p>\n Mr Donaldson’s murder came months after he admitted to being a police and MI5 agent within Sinn F\u00e9in for 20 years.<\/p>\n The case is being heard by a jury at the High Court in Dublin and could last four weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Adams also alleges he was defamed in a BBC online article based on the broadcast, a BBC NI Spotlight TV documentary, which contained claims made by an anonymous source.<\/p>\n During pre-trial hearings, the BBC argued the broadcast and publication were put out in good faith and concerned a matter of public interest.<\/p>\n It stated the reports constituted responsible journalism as a result of careful investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Giving evidence on Wednesday, Mr Adams told the libel jury he was “shocked” when told that Mr Donaldson had been shot dead at a remote cottage in Donegal.<\/p>\n He said he learnt of the killing in a phone call from the then Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain.<\/p>\n Asked his reaction, Mr Adams replied: “I was shocked.”<\/p>\n “The Sunday World carried the story a few weeks before and there was a photograph outside cottage,” he said.<\/p>\n “I presumed he had moved and hadn’t left himself vulnerable, but unfortunately he didn’t.”<\/p>\n He continued: “I think Denis Donaldson was victim of the conflict.<\/p>\n “The fact his family is still struggling to get the truth, even an inquest, is deeply troubling.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Adams, under questioning from his own legal team, spoke about the outset of the Northern Ireland Troubles, when “the entire situation moved from a civil rights struggle to a conflict situation”.<\/p>\n He dealt with his internment without trial in the 1970s and the 1981 Republican hunger strikes, by which time he was Sinn F\u00e9in vice president.<\/p>\n One of those who died on hunger strike was Bobby Sands, who was elected an MP months earlier.<\/p>\n “A number of us were trying to revamp Sinn F\u00e9in,” Mr Adams said.<\/p>\n “What Bobby’s [Sands] election did was accelerated that process.<\/p>\n “That was the commencement of the Sinn F\u00e9in electoral strategy, but also the notion you could go forward peacefully.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Adams then talked about the development of the peace process.<\/p>\n “The IRA was legitimate response to [British] occupation. That’s not to say everything they did was legitimate, it wasn’t.”<\/p>\n He said he told a priest, Fr Alec Reid: “If we want the IRA to stop, we have to produce an alternative.<\/p>\n “That became my mantra.”<\/p>\n Mr Adams said he was “shocked” at how long things took.<\/p>\n “It was too long and all the time there were people being killed – there were atrocities, including on the republican side.”<\/p>\n The case continues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Adams was the former president of republican party Sinn F\u00e9in from 1983 until 2018.<\/p>\n He served as MP in his native west Belfast from 1997 until 2011 before sitting as a TD (Teachta D\u00e1la) in the D\u00e1il (Irish parliament) between 2011 and 2020.<\/p>\n Mr Adams led the Sinn F\u00e9in delegation during peace talks that eventually brought an end to the Troubles after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.<\/p>\n He was detained in the early 1970s when the government in Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for those suspected of paramilitary involvement.<\/p>\n Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Donaldson was once a key figure in Sinn F\u00e9in’s rise as a political force in Northern Ireland but he was found brutally murdered in 2006 after it emerged he had been a spy.<\/p>\n He was interned without trial for periods in the 1970s.<\/p>\n After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn F\u00e9in appointed Mr Donaldson as their key administrator in the party’s Stormont offices.<\/p>\n In 2005 Mr Donaldson confessed that he was a spy for British intelligence for two decades, before disappearing from Belfast.<\/p>\n He was found dead in a small, run down cottage in Glenties, County Donegal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"PA](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/b93e\/live\/89919b00-2514-11f0-b05b-c318efde514b.jpg.webp\")
PA Media<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/bbcdotcom\/web\/20250409-091508-0ef9b7676-web-2.19.1-12\/grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"PA](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/3541\/live\/bf0924c0-21da-11f0-9060-674316cb3a1f.jpg.webp\")
PA Media<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"PA](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/ed27\/live\/4443e800-2514-11f0-b05b-c318efde514b.jpg.webp\")
PA Media<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Alternative’ to IRA needed<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/cc0b\/live\/4f9cad00-25bd-11f0-9dc9-b193739ae462.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nWho is Gerry Adams?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Who was Denis Donaldson?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/b1dd\/live\/228fd300-21df-11f0-9c65-a5c3dc449bf3.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n