Gerry Adams

[Magda Hassan]

Police questioning Gerry Adams for a third day have NEW VIDEO evidence of who ordered Jean McConville's execution

• Police may have video of IRA member naming killers of Jean McConville
  
• Old Bailey bomber Delours Price gave secret interview before her death
  
• First believed only evidence used to hold Gerry Adams was 'Boston tapes'
  
  
• Interviews not supposed to be released until after deaths of all concerned
  
• But after a legal battle, secret tapes passed to police in Northern Ireland
  
  
• Ex-IRA terrorists who claim they served with Adams say he ordered killing
  
• But Sinn Fein leader has repeatedly denied any involvement in the murder
  
  

By Martin Robinson
Published: 10:04 GMT, 2 May 2014 | Updated: 15:58 GMT, 2 May 2014

Police interviewing Gerry Adams have new evidence from a convicted IRA terrorist that may name the Sinn Fein president as the person who ordered the execution of Jean McConville, it was revealed today.
A video interview of Old Bailey bomber Delours Price carried out shortly before her death last year is said to name members of the squad who abducted and murdered the mother of ten in 1972.
Until today it was believed the only evidence in the hands of the police is the Tapes from Beyond the Grave' explosive 2001 interviews with former IRA terrorists revealing notorious crimes.


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Damning: Police have a video of Old Bailey bomber Dolours Price giving a secret interview on the execution of Jean McConville, where she may have named Gerry Adams, right in 1971, as the man who ordered it


Interview: Gerry Adams remained in police custody here in Co Antrim, where he has been in custody since Wednesday


The audio interviews, recorded for a history project in the United States - known as the Boston College tapes - were granted only under strict condition that they were not released until after the deaths of all concerned.
But after a fierce legal battle, the secret interviews were passed to the police in Northern Ireland and the bombshell revelations contained on the tapes are thought to be a key factor behind the dramatic arrest and questioning of Gerry Adams at a police station in Antrim yesterday.
They contain evidence about how Jean McConville was dragged screaming out of her west Belfast home in front of her children by IRA members who then executed her and buried her on a beach in 1972.

Her body was found 31 years later but none of the 12-strong gang who abducted and killed her have ever been brought to justice.

More...

• 'I'll name my mother's killers…will they put a bullet in my head?' Jean McConville's daughter vows to name IRA members who executed her mother as Gerry Adams spends second night in police custody
  
• At last, a sign that no-one is above the law: Gerry Adams's arrest in connection with the murder of Jean McConville is a victory for ordinary people, says RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS
  

Today it was reported the Police Service of Northern Ireland have a 'newer' video with Price, which goes into further detail into how Mrs McConville was taken from her home, driven into the Republic of Ireland and shot in the back of the head.
Dolours Price was the first woman to become a member of an IRA active service unit and the leader of the terror cell which bombed the Old Bailey in 1973.
Price, who died last year, recounted how she was chosen to be part of a small select unit within the three battalions that made up the Belfast Brigade.

The group of eight hand-picked volunteers, labelled the Unknowns', were responsible for special operations, including internal investigations to weed out informers'.
She told Boston academics: The hardest thing I ever did was drive those people away, the Disappeared.

I never knew for sure their ultimate end, I was simply told by Gerry Adams to take the people away, a couple of lads or whatever.
'It was part of my job within the "Unknowns" to take them across the border to hand them over to others. I don't even remember some of the names, isn't that terrible?'



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Murdered: At least two high-profile IRA operatives have linked the Sinn Fein leader (right) to the murder of Jean McConville (left), the mother of ten who was brutally abducted, executed and secretly buried in December 1972



Price's interview continued: I drove away Jean McConville, a very, very unpleasant woman.
I know I shouldn't speak ill of the dead and I don't think she deserved to die and, at the time, I didn't know she had children.
I had a call one night and Adams was in a house down the Falls Road and she'd (McConville) been arrested by Cumann na mBan (a female wing of the IRA) women and held for a couple of days. She got into my car and as far as she was concerned she was being taken away by the Legion of Mary to a place of safety.

It was unfortunate for her and it was unfortunate for me as well because she was a foul-mouthed woman who cursed and swore a lot all the way down to the border. She went on and on about "them provies, they wouldn't have the balls to shoot me... I don't care what I did". I was saying to myself, "please don't say any more", but she went on and on she convicted herself out of her own mouth. It wasn't my decision to disappear her, thank God.
You don't deserve to die if you are an unpleasant person, as she was, but you do deserve to die if you are an informer, I do believe that. Particularly in a war, that is the Republican way.'







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Removing her body: The mother of ten's body is removed from an area near Templetown beach in County Louth
Researchers at Boston College last year lost a Supreme Court challenge in the US when they tried to block the release of the 84 tapes after the PSNI launched a high-profile legal challenge. So far, 11 have been handed over relating to the McConville case.
Boston College said yesterday: 'We are not privy to the actions of British law enforcement and have had no involvement in the matter since the U.S. court issued the order to remand portions of the archived interviews last year'.
At least two high-profile IRA operatives have linked the Sinn Fein leader to the murder of Jean McConville, the mother of ten who was brutally abducted, executed and secretly buried in December 1972.
The former IRA terrorists who claim they served alongside Adams say he ordered the killing.
They include two damning accounts one of which was given by ex-hunger striker Brendan Darkie' Hughes, a former deputy commander of the IRA's Belfast Brigade.
Hughes, who died in 2008, said McConville was killed on Adams' orders. There was only one man who gave the order for that woman to be executed . . . that man is now the head of Sinn Fein,' he said.
I did not give the order to execute that woman. He did. I knew she was being executed. I knew that. I didn't know she was going to be buried or disappeared as they called them now.
The special squad was brought into the operation then called the Unknowns, you know, when anyone needed to be taken away, they normally done it. I had no control over this squad. Gerry had control over this particular squad.'

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Former friends: Gerry Adams (left) is pictured in Long Kesh prison with Brendan 'Darkie' Hughes, a former deputy commander of the IRA's Belfast Brigade. Hughes said Jean McConville was killed on Adams' orders



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Denial: Adams has repeatedly denied involvement in McConville's death or the IRA policy of 'The Disappeared'

The wild card in any prosecutions could be a former IRA man called Ivor Bell, 77, who had a bitter split with Adams in the mid-1980s.
Bell's interviews, if accepted as admissible evidence, could be used against Adams because Bell is still alive. Bell was charged in March with aiding and abetting in the murder of McConville, which he denies.
Adams has repeated and categorically denied involvement in the death or the IRA policy of The Disappeared' men and women in Northern Ireland suspected of being informers of the British who were taken from the streets, questioned, shot and buried.
But the tapes and subsequent interviews allege a very different story in a detailed series of claims which were yesterday being put to the 65-year-old politician and architect of the Good Friday agreement.

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