With more than five decades of struggle against British colonialism behind him Gerry Adams is widely regarded as an icon of Irish Republicanism

Irish Republican leader, Gerry Adams, has won his appeal to have two convictions stretching back to the early 1970s overturned.

Adams was President of Sinn Féin (the core Irish Republican party) between 1983 and 2018.

The British establishment - in tandem with the mainstream media - has consistently tried to link Adams to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Both of Adams’ original convictions relate to his attempted escape from the infamous Maze Prison, also known as Long Kesh internment camp, in 1973 and 1974.

Adams was later sentenced to a total of four-and-a-half years in prison for essentially trying to escape from illegal detention.

Code named Operation Demetrius, the internment of suspected Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland by the occupying British army began in August 1971 and lasted until December 1975.

During that period a total of 1,981 people were detained, mostly based on flawed intelligence and broader political considerations.

Indeed, in its latest judgement the Supreme Court quashed Adams’ convictions on the ground that his original detention had been unlawful.

In welcoming the Supreme Court ruling Adams said internment without trial set aside the normal principles of law and was based on a blunt and brutal piece of coercive legislation.

There is an onus on the British government to identify and inform other internees whose internment may also have been unlawful, Adams added.

Owing to his long leadership of Sinn Féin, and broader involvement in the quest for Irish Unity, Adams is widely regarded as one of the greatest icons of Irish nationalism in the contemporary era.

Not surprisingly Adams is loathed by the British establishment and its allies in occupied Northern Ireland.

In 1984 he was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by the Ulster Defense Association, a British-backed loyalist terrorist group.

SOURCE: PRESS TV