Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams appeared at London's High Court on Monday for a civil lawsuit which aims to hold him liable for Irish Republican Army bombings in Britain, a case which could affect the prominent republican leader's legacy.
Adams became Sinn Fein leader in 1983 when it was the IRA's political wing, establishing himself as the face of the movement seeking to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
The 77-year-old is now being sued by some of those injured in three bombings: one at London's Old Bailey court in 1973 and two 1996 blasts, targeting the British capital and Manchester.
The three claimants are seeking a nominal 1 pound ($1.33) in damages and a finding that, on the balance of probabilities, Adams was a senior member of the IRA during Northern Ireland's three decades of sectarian conflict known as the Troubles.
An interesting bit of history of Gerry Adams is the Voice Ban (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%931994_British_broadcasting_voice_restrictions) that the British government enacted.
From October 1988 to September 1994 the British government banned broadcasts of the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and ten other Irish republican and loyalist groups on television and radio in the United Kingdom.