The Gerry Adams Libel affair against the BBC begins at the High Court of Dublin

The selection of the jury for a defamation case presented by Gerry Adams against the BBC begins Tuesday at the High Court of Dublin.

The former president of Sinn Féin believes that he was defamed in a 2016 program which, according to him, was wrong to lighten having sanctioned the murder of an informant, Denis Donalds.

Donaldson was shot dead in Donegal in 2006, months after admitting his role as police and agent of the MI5 for 20 years.

Mr. Adams, 76, denies any involvement.

In 2009, the real IRA admitted to having killed Mr. Donaldson, who had worked for Sinn Féin.

Mr. Adams also alleges that he was broadcast in an online article of the BBC based on the Broadcast, a BBC TV documentary or Spotlight, which contained allegations made by an anonymous source.

He requests damages, alleging that his reputation has been damaged.

The case is expected to last several weeks and will be heard before a jury.

During the hearings prior to the trial, the BBC argued that dissemination and publication had been published in good faith and concerned a question of public interest.

He said reports were responsible journalism following a meticulous investigation.

Speaking in court on Tuesday morning, Adams said he had asked for a withdrawal of complaints in the online article, but the BBC had refused.

“Not only have they not corrected it, but to date it is still on their website, so here we are nine years later,” he said.

“I’m trying to see the corrected file.”

He added that if he had offered him compensation, he would give it to “good causes”.

Mr. Adams was the former president of the Republican Party Sinn Féin from 1983 to 2018.

He was a deputy in his west Belfast native from 1997 to 2011 before sitting as TD (Teachta Dála) in Dáil (Irish Parliament) between 2011 and 2020.

Mr. Adams led the Sinn Féin delegation during the peace talks who finally ended the problems after the signing of the Friday agreement in 1998.

He was arrested in the early 1970s when the government of Northern Ireland introduced internment without trials for those suspected of paramilitary involvement.

Mr. Adams has always denied being a member of IRA.

Mr. Donaldson was once a key figure in Sinn Féin’s rise as a political force in Northern Ireland, but he was found brutally murdered in 2006 after he emerged that he was a spy.

He was interned without trials for periods in the 1970s.

After the signing of the Good Friday agreement, Sinn Féin appointed Mr. Donaldson as his key administrator in the Party Stormont offices.

In 2005, Donaldson admitted that he was a spy of British intelligence for two decades, before disappearing from Belfast.

He was found dead in a small chalet descending with glestees, in the county of Donegal.