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Belfast

Gerry Adams denies claims about meeting with alleged rape victim

The allegations were featured in a BBC Spotlight documentary last night.

PA Wire / Press Association Images PA Wire / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

SINN FÉIN PRESIDENT Gerry Adams has strongly denied claims by Mairia Cahill in a BBC Spotlight documentary last night.

Cahill, the niece of IRA founder Joe Cahill, claims that, as a teenager, she was raped and repeatedly sexually abused throughout 1997 by a prominent IRA member.

She also alleges that the IRA held a “kangaroo court” over the abuse claims, in an effort to prevent a police investigation.

In the documentary, Cahill is scathingly critical of the tone of a conversation she had with Adams, a few years later.

The Sinn Féin president, however, said in a statement this evening that he “totally [refutes] the allegations.”

I met Mairia in good faith, at the behest of her cousin and my late friend Siobhan O’Hanlon…

Adams said that, after hearing about the rape allegations, he met with Joe Cahill, and “asked him to speak to Mairia about reporting this to the RUC.”

The Louth TD claims Mairia Cahill was unwilling to go the police at that time.

Read: How many houses does Gerry Adams own?>