Gerry Adams to challenge 1970s jailbreak convictions

SINN FEIN’S former leader Gerry Adams on Tuesday heads to Britain’s highest court to challenge two convictions from the darkest days of the violence in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

In the early days of “The Troubles”, Adams was held without trial, under special “internment” measures designed to quell increasing unrest over British rule of the province.

He tried to escape from the highsecurity Maze prison near Belfast, which housed loyalist and republican paramilitary inmates, in December 1973 and July 1974.

But the plans, reportedly orchestrated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), both failed.

He was convicted of both attempts in March and April 1975.

Adams did not challenge the guilty verdicts at the time but is now attempting to have them overturned following the release of previously classified government documents.

Internment

According to the Supreme Court, the issue at stake is whether his original custody order was “rendered invalid by the fact that it was made by the Minister of State [for Northern Ireland] and had not been considered personally by the Secretary of State”.

Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal previously dismissed the case in February last year.

Three judges said they were satisfied the detention order was valid as the junior minister was acting on behalf of his superior.

Internment was a controversial policy when it was introduced to try to end the spiralling violence between pro-British loyalists and republicans who wanted a united Ireland.

Between 1971 and 1975 nearly 2,000 mainly republican prisoners were held without trial, according to Ulster University.

The policy – considered by some as a curb on civil liberties – is often credited for stoking the bloodshed and bolstering support for the IRA.

After his release from prison, Adams, now 71, became a pol it ica l figurehead during some of t he bloodiest episodes of t he decades-long conflict, which lef t 3,500 dead over t hree decades. He was charged with IR A membership in 1978 but t he case was dropped due to insufficient ev idence.

He became leader of Sinn Fein – the political wing of the IRA – in 1983.

But he has always publicly denied being enrolled in the ranks of paramilitary leadership, despite repeated conflicting claims from movement insiders.

Adams was elected to British parliament but declined to take up his seat under Sinn Fein’s strict policy of abstention, in which representatives refused to swear loyalty to the British head of state, Queen Elizabeth II.

The IRA – which did not recognise the authority of the British state to imprison its members – frequently executed prison breaks.

The most prolific saw 38 republican paramilitaries break out en masse from the Maze prison in 1983, in a huge symbolic victory for the movement.

“The Troubles” effectively wound down with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ushered in a power-sharing government in Belfast between republican and unionist parties.

Adams stood down from the role as Sinn Fein leader in February 2018 but is still considered a leading force of the movement to create an allIreland republic.