Gerry Adams was “reputed to have become a member of the Army Council of the IRA”, a former attorney general has told his libel trial against the BBC. Mr Adams is suing the BBC over what he has deemed to be a “grievous smear” made by a confidential source in a Spotlight documentary that alleged he had sanctioned the killing of a former Sinn Fein official who turned out to be an informant. He claims a BBC Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement. Mr Donaldson was shot dead in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent for 20 years. In 2009, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing, and the Spotlight programme was broadcast in September 2016 while a garda investigation into the matter was ongoing. In the programme, an anonymous source claimed that the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Mr Adams “gives the final say”. He denies any involvement in the killing and has denied being in the IRA. At the High Court in Dublin on Wednesday, former Irish attorney general Michael McDowell was called as a witness to speak about Mr Adams’ reputation among the public and politicians. Mr McDowell, a current senator who also served as Irish deputy premier and justice minister, said: “Amongst the public, he is known as a politician now who was a leading member of the IRA and who was active in the IRA during the period of its armed struggle against the forces of law and order on this island.” He added: “He is reputed to have been a chief negotiator in – I think – 1974 between the provisional movement and the British government and thereafter he was reputed to have a role in the Belfast IRA as its commanding officer. “Later he was reputed to have become a member of the Army Council of the IRA.” Under questioning from Paul Gallagher SC, for the BBC, Mr McDowell said he had “never met anybody involved in the political process or in the media” who did not believe Mr Adams was a member of the IRA in the past – apart from Mr Adams himself as well as Sinn Fein politicians Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris who issued a public statement denying it. The witness explained to the jury that he became attorney general in 1999 and was involved in the the Northern Ireland peace process following the Good Friday Agreement. Mr Gallagher, also a former attorney general, asked Mr McDowell about the view of the Irish government of Mr Adams during the peace process. He answered: “During that period, the view of the Government based on intelligence briefings was that Mr Adams was a member of the Army Council and was a leading member of the Army Council.” Asked about his reputation among politicians more generally, he added: “I’ve never met any politician who did not believe he was a leading member of the IRA during its ‘armed struggle’, as it calls it, and thereafter he was a dominant figure within Army Council.” Mr McDowell told the jury that the IRA had conducted “extensive operations” in the Republic of Ireland, including weapons training, bomb making, fundraising, kidnapping and intimidation. He said this was done in support of the organisation “north of the border”. Mr McDowell also explained his knowledge of how the IRA treated informants. “In general terms, the IRA executed anybody from its own ranks who it found to be what they called a ‘tout’ for the British – or an informer. “They frequently arrested people – or kidnapped them north of the border, interrogated them in a safe house, applied torture to them, and brought them south of the border and shot them in the back of the head and laid them in a ditch south of the border.” Mr Adams was present in court for the proceedings, accompanied for the morning session by Irish singer-songwriter Christy Moore. Under cross-examination from John Kerr, Mr McDowell acknowledged his history of involvement with the Fine Gael party and said that he was a regular contributor to media. Mr Kerr put to the former Attorney General that he made no secret of his hatred of Sinn Fein. Mr McDowell said he would not argue over the meaning of the word hatred, adding “that is one way of putting it”. However, he added: “I abominate what they have done in the past and what they did do in the past “I also abominate their dishonesty about what they did do and their willingness to lie about that.” Mr McDowell acknowledged that Mr Adams played a role in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement but added: “He represented himself entirely falsely, in my view, as a go-between for the IRA and the political process – whereas in fact he was the dominant character in the IRA at the time.” Asked if the Agreement would not have happened without Mr Adams, Mr McDowell added: “That’s absolutely true.” However, he said there were multiple other parties involved in the peace process, including “decent unionists” such as David Trimble, Alliance and the SDLP. He said negotiators were also “blessed” by the interest taken by then UK prime minister Tony Blair and his positive relationship and joint purpose with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Asked if he would give Mr Adams any credit, Mr McDowell said he would give him the credit of “common sense” that the IRA had been defeated, adding that if the organisation was to forward its political aim, it would have to abandon violence in circumstances where it would not appear to the public it had surrendered. He added: “The Good Friday Agreement couldn’t have taken place if the IRA continued to wage a war against the British and Irish states.” Earlier, the jury was told that Mr Adams had a reputation as a “warmonger” and “peace taker”. Ann Travers, an advocate with the victims’ group the South East Fermanagh Foundation, explained to the jury that her sister Mary was killed by the Provisional IRA in an attack in which her father Tom Travers, a lawyer who became a magistrate in 1979, was also shot six times. She said the plaintiff had a reputation as someone “very heavily involved with the murder of innocent people” and being a “senior member of the IRA”. Northern Ireland solicitor Trevor Ringland explained to the jury that his father had been shot by the IRA in North Belfast. Mr Ringland, a former Ireland rugby international who was born to a police family in West Belfast in 1959, said he worked with victims’ groups in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Asked by Mr Gallagher for the public’s perception of Mr Adams, he replied: “He is seen as a peace taker, not a peacemaker.” The witnesses were the last to be called by the defence in the case. The trial continues on Thursday.