73-year-old released without charge following McConville questioning

Jean McConville with some of her 10 children prior to her abduction

A 73-year-old man who was arrested yesterday by detectives investigating the abduction and murder of Jean McConville has been released without charge.

The man was detained by detectives from the Serious Crime Branch of the PSNI in Dunmurray yesterday morning.

He was taken to the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim police station for questioning and later released unconditionally, PSNI detective inspector Neil McGuiness said.

Several people have been detained and questioned this year in connection with the 1972 murder, the most high profile being Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. Mr Adams (65) was released in May without charge after four days in police custody.

Yesterday’s arrest came as Belfast man Ivor Bell (77), who has been charged with paramilitary membership and aiding and abetting the murder, made his latest appearance in court in relation to the case.

In December 1972, Mrs McConville was dragged, screaming, away from her children in the Divis flats in west Belfast by a gang of up to 12 men and women.

Her family had later speculated the IRA wrongly assumed she was an informer. Mrs McConville had also converted from Protestant to Catholic to marry her husband Arthur McConville, a Catholic former British Army soldier who died of cancer in early 1972.

There has also been a suggestion, although uncorroborated, that she tended to a wounded British soldier outside her door in the summer, just months before her murder.

In the years that followed the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Republican movement insisted Mrs McConville was an informer.

Former IRA member Brendan Hughes alleged she had only been killed after being warned to stop supplying information. However, a Police Ombudsman investigation in 2006 found no evidence to support that contention.

It also concluded the murder had not been investigated until 1995, when a minor probe was undertaken by the RUC.

After years of searching, Mrs McConville’s body was found in 2003 when heavy rain unearthed the remains at Shellinghill Beach on the Cooley peninsula, 50 miles from her home.

Man arrested over Jean McConville murder

Jean McConville with some of her 10 children prior to her abduction

A man has been arrested in connection with the abduction and murder of Jean McConville in 1972.

The 73-year-old from Dunmurray was detained by detectives from the Serious Crime Branch of the PSNI this morning.

“He has been taken to the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim police station for questioning,” PSNI detective inspector Neil McGuiness said.

Several people have been detained and questioned this year in connection with the murder – the most high profile being Sinn Féin president and local TD Gerry Adams. Mr Adams (65) was released in May without charge after four days in police custody.

Mrs McConville was dragged, screaming, away from her children in the Divis flats in west Belfast by a gang of up to 12 men and women after being wrongly accused of informing to the security forces.

The 37-year-old widow was interrogated, shot in the back of the head and then secretly buried – becoming one of the ‘Disappeared’ victims of the Troubles. Her body was not found until 2003 on a beach in Shelling Hill in north Louth, 50 miles from her home.

Price tapes “could lead to the fall” of Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams could have questions to answer if the Delours Price tapes go public

Journalist Ed Moloney has claimed that tapes being held in Boston containing interviews with former IRA member Delours Price could lead to the fall of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams were they to be released.

Last week the US Supreme Court ruled that tapes of an interview with Price by Boston College could be released to the PSNI.

Detectives in the North are investigating claims by Price before she died in January of this year that she was one of the IRA volunteers involved in the kidnap, torture and murder of mum of 10 Jean McConville in Belfast in 1972. Ms McConville’s remains were only discovered buried at Shellinghill Beach almost 10 years ago now in August 2003.

Price is understood to have alleged that Gerry Adams, now a TD in Louth, was her commanding officer at the time of the killing and ordered her to undertake the mission.

Adams has always denied having any involvement in the death of Ms McConville or having been a member of the IRA.

In 2009, one of his closest friends Brendan Hughes gave an interview that was broadcast after his death which poured scorn on Adam’s denial of IRA membership. The interview, which appeared in the programme Voices From The Grave, said that Adams was at the epicentre of many IRA operations in Belfast in the early Seventies, including the disappearance of Jean McConville.

The interviews with Hughes and Price were conducted by IRA convict Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney – with the latter pleading with the Americans not to release the tapes.

At the weekend he told RTÉ that the material provided by Price could lead to the fall of Gerry Adams and potentially even threaten the entire peace process.

We wait with bated breath to see what happens now…

Source: We owe it to McConville to reveal IRA interviews and tackle Adams (Evening Herald)