PSNI DEFIANT AS ADAMS CLEARED OVER 1972 KILLING

Posted by Jim on October 3, 2015

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has warned there are elements within the
PSNI police in the North who are working against his party after it was
confirmed he will not be prosecuted in connection with the IRA execution
of an alleged informer 43 years ago.

Mr Adams, Sinn Fein’s northern chairman, Bobby Storey and five others
arrested in connection with the death of Belfast woman Jean McConville
will not be prosecuted over the 1972 killing, it was announced this
week.

Mr Adams said the timing of his arrest last year — weeks before
European elections — exposed anti-Sinn Fein motives within the force.

He said the decision was “long overdue”.

“There was never any real basis for questioning me in respect of this
case. I played no act or part in Jean McConville’s death,” he said on
Tuesday afternoon.

“I support the PSNI. But the timing of my arrest showed there remain
elements within the PSNI who are against Sinn Féin. But they will not
succeed.”

Mr Adams voluntarily went to the PSNI last year after a series of leaks
claiming that he was about to be arrested.

The alleged evidence against him includes content supplied by American
authorities from the Boston College Belfast Project. The tapes from the
project were a collection of recorded testimonies from Provisional IRA
veterans, interviewed so as to create a historic archive of the conflict
on the basis that each participant’s interview would not be made public
until the participant’s death.

The PSNI gained access to the tapes via the US court system after Boston
College agreed to hand them over. Prosecutors claimed the case was
abandoned chiefly because the taped interviews would legally be classed
as hearsay and therefore too weak to be used as evidence.

In one notable exception, veteran republican Ivor Bell, who in recent
years has opposed Sinn Fein’s political direction, remains charged in
connection with the McConville killing. He is the only person to date
to be charged on the strength of alleged evidence contained on the
tapes.

Mr Adams said Sinn Fein had been the target of a “sustained and
malicious campaign”.

“These claims have also been seized upon and repeated by my political
opponents, including the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil leader, to score
political points against Sinn Féin and me.

“I want to encourage anyone with information to assist in the return of
the bodies of those people killed and secretly buried by the IRA. I have
worked with others towards this and I will continue to do so. I want to
thank those who have come forward with such information.

“I am also very conscious of the huge hurt inflicted on the McConville
family. The abduction, killing and secret burial of Jean McConville was
wrong.

“Sinn Féin has agreed with others, through the Stormont House Agreement,
processes for addressing the legacy of the past. We are committed to
implementing them.”

PSNI chief George Hamilton said Mr Adams should go to the Police
Ombudsman with any complaint about his treatment.

“That’s the right place, that’s the accountability mechanism and we
welcome that,” he said.

At the time, Mr Adams made a formal complaint about specific aspects of
his four-day detention at Antrim police station, after which he was
released without charge. His arrest and interrogation generated a wave
of renewed attention to the political deadlock in the North of Ireland.

His remarks this week echo allegations by Deputy First Minister Martin
McGuinness about a “dark side” of policing in the region after the
Provisional IRA was blamed for involvement in a recent killing of east
Belfast man Kevin McGiugan.

Over a dozen ‘mainstream’ republicans were arrested and later released
in connection with the death of Mr McGuigan, himself a former republican
prisoner. It was alleged the killing was carried out in retaliation for
the murder of a former IRA commander, ‘Jock’ Davison, in May.

Mr Hamilton suggested Mr Storey also go to the Police Ombudsman.

“Let’s see where the evidence takes us, that’s what we’ve been doing and
what we will continue to do,” he said.

“I am confident in our decision making all around this investigation so
far.”