Gerry Adams was identified nearly 30 years ago as a member of the IRA’s army council by former Prime Minister Sir John Major, according to sensational unearthed documents.
Both Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness, who went on to become deputy first minister in the Northern Ireland government, were named as members of the IRA’s war council in a 1997 US state department diplomatic cable.
The former Sinn Féin president, who has always denied being a member of the Provisional IRA (PIRA), was also identified as a senior IRA commander in a newly unearthed British government memo.
The IRA’s council directed the notorious Irish paramilitary group in carrying out terrorist activity and multiple bombings in Northern Ireland and across the UK.
It was responsible for a reign of terror on mainland UK from the 1970s to the late 1990s and a series of horrific and barbaric bombings in which members of the public including children were killed and maimed.
Mr Adams once famously shook the hand of the late Queen in 2012 on her historic state visit to Northern Ireland to acknowledge her part in the peace process and reconciliation.
He has always claimed he was only involved in the political struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland as a member of its political wing Sinn Féin.
The documents came to light in the National Archives ahead of a landmark High Court claim next week against Mr Adams alleging he played a ‘senior and pivotal role in the Provisional Irish Republican Army’.
Gerry Adams has always claimed he was only involved in the political struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland as a member of its political wing Sinn Féin
He has persistently denied the claims he was a senior commander of the IRA, even winning damages from the BBC as recently as last year.
In the US state department cable, Sir John, who was Prime Minister between 1990 and 1997, tells the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that both Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness had been members of the IRA army council.
The cable dated March 5, 1997, shortly before Sir John, then Mr Major, left Downing Street, is a written record of an earlier meeting held in Downing Street on Feb 19, 1997.
‘Adams and McGuinness were both on the army council and had been so for many years. The idea that the military wing acts without the knowledge of the political side is fanciful. They all knew and all set the strategy together,’ he reportedly told her.
Now three claimants in the forthcoming civil case, victims of IRA attacks on the UK mainland, are trying to prove that he was ‘responsible for the orchestration of the planned bombings’.
They allege that Mr Adams is liable for damages for the injuries they suffered by virtue of his affiliation and leadership role in the IRA and are suing him for a symbolic £1 in compensation.
If he loses the case, calls for him to face criminal prosecution are likely to follow.
The claimants were chosen to represent the 25 year span of influence of the Mr Adams’ influence with claimants from the first attack in London in 1973 and the last in Manchester in 1996, the biggest bomb detonated in Britain since the Second World War.
A cable claims Mr Adams (left) and Martin McGuinness were ‘both on the army council and had been so for many years’
In a separate document, Mr Adams was identified as a senior IRA commander who had been involved in the ‘violent activities’ of the PIRA and again identified as a senior member of its army council, even rising to head it.
The confidential 1980s memo was circulated in the Foreign Office and Northern Ireland Office and was written in support of the US decision to reject a visa application for Mr Adams to visit the US in 1988.
In the document, now contained in the National Archives in Kew, west London, an official wrote: ‘The consular officer’s determination concerning Adams arose from the alien’s support for and involvement in the violent activities of the provisional Irish Republican Army.’
It also stated: ‘In addition to Adams’ advocacy of violence and his associational ties with the PIRA, there is reason to believe that Adams’ advocacy of violence has included his personal involvement in and leadership, organisation and direction of groups committing terrorist acts.’
It added: ‘For example, Adams has been identified as the commanding officer of one of the three battalions of the PIRA Belfast brigade during 1971-1972, when acts of terrorism were conducted by that group against civilians.’
It went on: ‘In the late 1970s, Adams is believed to have been selected as chief of staff of the PIRA’s army council.’
Mr Adams has always strenuously denied being a member of the IRA and has successfully sued in court over claims of involvement in terrorist activities.
One of the victims who is suing, Jonathan Ganesh, who was seriously injured in the 1996 Docklands bombing in London, told the Telegraph: ‘We aren’t suing for financial compensation. It’s a symbolic amount for all those people who were killed and injured.
‘We contend that Mr Adams was in the IRA and was the leading figure in it.’
Adams won his high profile libel case against the BBC last year over its claim that he had sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson, a British agent. The claim was made in a documentary a decade ago.
Mr Adams, 77, was awarded €100,000 (£84,000) in damages after successfully suing the BBC in a Dublin court.
His Irish lawyer Paul Tweed, who was also a legal adviser to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, described the allegations against Mr Adams as ‘totally untrue and defamatory’.
Lawyers in next week’s case are said to have compiled thousands of pages of documents to try to prove that Mr Adams was a senior PIRA figure, including evidence contained in the National Archives in London and in Washington as well as open source material such as contemporaneous interviews, newspaper reports and testimony from military intelligence officers.
Mr Adams tried and failed last month in a legal bid to overturn the anonymity of two of the witnesses who will give evidence against him in the high stakes case.
Mr Justice Swift found that concerns for their personal safety were ‘genuinely held’ and likely to make them reluctant to give evidence if named in court.
Lawyers for the witnesses, known as Witness A and B, said there was ‘clear and cogent’ evidence of ‘a risk of harm’ from IRA sympathisers should they be identified.
Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA or having any involvement in terrorist activity.
A spokesman for Mr Adams has previously said: ‘A significant number of former British Army and intelligence services witnesses will give evidence, effectively, to say that Mr Adams was a senior republican … and must be responsible for these specific events.
‘It will be understood that there are some veterans of the British Army and security services who remain deeply hostile to republicans, to Sinn Féin, and to Mr Adams personally.
‘Some among those groups see republicans as the enemy they failed to defeat, rather than people with whom they can build a shared and peaceful future.’
Mr Adams was approached for comment.