LONDON, March 9, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Former Irish republican leader Gerry Adams will attend a civil trial that opens in London Monday brought by three IRA bomb victims who seek to hold him personally responsible for attacks.

The 77-year-old has long been dogged by legal spats over his role in the Troubles, the three-decades-long violent sectarian conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland that ignited in the late 1960s.

Adams, who led Sinn Fein -- the Irish Republican Army's former political wing -- during the Troubles was for years a hated figure for many Protestants in the British province.

The trial at the Royal Courts of Justice will be the first time Adams has appeared in an English court. It is expected to last seven days.

He is being sued for symbolic damages of one pound for "vindicatory purposes".

The action is being brought by John Clark, a victim of an IRA attack on the Old Bailey courthouse in London in 1973, as well as Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured in IRA attacks in 1996 at London's Docklands and in Manchester, respectively.

Three people died in the three bombings, and scores of people were injured.

The three men allege Adams was a senior IRA member for over 25 years who "acted with others in furtherance of a common design to bomb the British mainland", and "directed" the 1973 and 1996 attacks.

The men are expected to produce evidence from almost a dozen witnesses, including former IRA members and ex-British Army and Northern Irish police personnel, according to their solicitor, Matthew Jury.

Jury said Adams could demonstrate his reported regret for the IRA's killing of civilians by disclosing "the full truth about his association with the IRA".

"If he chooses not to do so, then the victims will let the High Court decide," he said.

Writing in the Belfast-based Andersonstown News newspaper last month, Adams said that he will "robustly" defend himself from "unsubstantiated hearsay" and challenge any allegations made by former combatants as part of the claimants' case.

He said an "official campaign of demonisation" is being waged against him by the "British establishment".

More than 3,600 people were killed during the Troubles, which largely ended after a 1998 peace accord.

Adams became president of Sinn Fein in 1983 and served as MP from 1983 to 1992, and again from 1997 to 2011 before sitting in the Irish parliament between 2011 and 2020.

He stepped down as leader of Sinn Fein in 2018, and has always denied being a member of the IRA.

Although interned twice in the 1970s, Adams has never been found guilty of IRA membership.

In 2020, he had convictions for attempting to escape jail quashed by the UK Supreme Court.

Last year he won a libel case in Dublin against the BBC over a report containing allegations he was involved in killing a British spy.