Adams Contacts Police Over McConville Claims

Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, has asked his lawyer to contact the police to clarify if detectives need to interview him about the murder of Jean McConville.

He was responding to speculation that police might want to question him after veteran republican Ivor Bell was refused bail at the weekend.

Bell, 77, is alleged to have been a senior member of the provisional IRA during the 1970s when Mrs McConville, a mother of 10, was abducted from her flat and murdered.

He is charged with aiding and abetting her murder, which happened in December 1972, as well as membership of the IRA.

It is understood the action was taken on the basis of an interview he is believed to have given researchers at Boston College in America who are a compiling a Troubles archive. The tapes were ordered to be handed over to the PSNI by a US court.

Other republicans were also interviewed for the project with some alleging that Mr Adams had played a role in Mrs McConville's death.

However, in a statement released on Monday, Adams again stated he was not involved with the mother's disappearance.

He said: "I can understand the McConville family's anger and hurt given what they have been through and given what some anti-peace process former republican activists have been alleging.

"However, let me repeat. What happened to Jean McConville was a terrible injustice. I was not involved in any part of it."

The Co Louth TD also hit out at the Boston Oral History project, describing it as "an entirely bogus, shoddy and self-serving effort by those involved", adding that "some of the individuals interviewed had gone to great lengths to attack the republican struggle and the peace process."

(JP)