Gerry Adams

[Magda Hassan]

The Belfast Tapes

By Thomas P. O'Neill III

| April 29, 2014

Last month, I listened as former President Bill Clinton delivered the inaugural lecture for the Hume-O'Neill Chair in Peace Studies at the University of Ulster Magee Campus in Derry, Northern Ireland. Clinton's address conveyed a simple, yet powerful, message: Northern Ireland has made enormous strides in the peace and reconciliation process, but the job is still not finished.
These words not only resonated throughout Northern Ireland, they have taken on considerable meaning for the United States and specifically for the City of Boston.
Boston College is immersed in a complex legal battle with the British government over the Belfast Tapes, an academic oral history project that has been tragically compromised as a result of Northern Irish political infighting and a misguided hunt for criminal justice.
Boston College commenced the Belfast Tapes project in 2001, appointing former IRA volunteer and prisoner Anthony McIntyre as the interviewer and Ed Moloney, a journalist with deep ties to both sides of the conflict, as the supervisor. With the Belfast Tapes, Boston College sought to intertwine modern academia and the college's Irish roots to document the Troubles and the peace process of Northern Ireland.
In February of 2010, former IRA paramilitary Dolours Price gave interviews with Irish media in which she revealed that she had participated in the Belfast Project, and told them that she and current Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams were involved in the 1972 abduction and murder of Belfast mother of 10, Jean McConville. This admission quickly sparked a series of subpoenas issued to Boston College by the US Department of Justice on behalf of the United Kingdom in May and August of 2011, requesting the tapes and transcripts for use in criminal investigations.
Undoubtedly, the murder of Jean McConville was an especially gruesome war crime and her family deserves justice. However, the investigation smacks of political motivation. Of the scores of murders committed during the Troubles, the British government is seeking only to investigate that of Jean McConville in what can be construed as an attempt to implicate Gerry Adams and jeopardize his current position within the Irish parliament.
For decades, the Northern Ireland conflict has existed as a polarizing issue for many US politicians as well as officials at the White House and the Department of State. The United States Department of State has historically acted in favor of the British government, long considered our staunchest ally, and complies with their requests time and again.
On this issue, our relations with Britain have not always been smooth. My father, former Speaker of the House "Tip" O'Neill, worked tirelessly with fellow Irish-American politicians to denounce the violence in Northern Ireland and to craft a peace accord for warring factions. He convinced Presidents Carter and Reagan to press the British government on the conflict and questioned their peacekeeping efforts, an act that challenged the stance of the Department of State.
The Belfast Tapes have exposed truths about the Troubles that reawaken feelings of betrayal and bitterness among former members of the IRA. These truths should be used as a form of catharsis and as a vehicle toward peace and reconciliation for Northern Ireland. Instead, the United States and Great Britain are allowing these truths to be used in ways that appear, frankly, both selective and political.
In the Boston College case, our "special relationship'' with Britain is raising serious and troubling questions: Are we abridging academic freedom in ways that will prevent participants in major international issues from stepping forward with their stories? Is the British demand for documents, and its search for alleged wrongdoing, driven as much by the politics of Ireland today as it is by the search for justice for past crimes? And why, when both sides in the Troubles were guilty of so much wrongdoing, is the British prosecution seemingly intent on only pursuing crimes allegedly committed by only one side?
In Clinton's recent address, he reminded Northern Ireland and the international community that the process to securing peace is not solely comprised of various static agreements and moments, but instead is an ever-evolving conversation that each generation must continue to have and adapt throughout history. All this turmoil now is a very clear example that that evolving conversation is continuing, and how we conduct it matters.
We should not be helping to fan the flames of animosity rooted in the past of Northern Ireland. Instead, we must uphold the values and constitutional rights upon which our country stands.

Thomas P. O'Neill III served on the Boston College Board of Trustees from 1992 to 2010 and currently acts as a trustee associate.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/...story.html

[Magda Hassan]

Why Gerry Adams arrest is a farce and one-sided justice

Niall O'Dowd @niallodowd May 01,2014 02:32 PM



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The arrest of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams for questioning about the murder in 1972 of Jean McConville is the latest example of the highly selective nature of the prosecution process in Northern Ireland.
It seems the only alleged crimes being heavily pursued are those on the nationalist side, with little or no attention to atrocities on the other side.
Thanks to the ill-conceived Boston College oral history project the spooks now have another ream of tapes full of allegations from long ago that cannot possibly be proven, mostly from people who are now dead.
Take a bow BC, Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre you have done a wonderful job on behalf of British spookdom allowing them to whip up a whole new round of empty charges.
Meanwhile, nothing on the nationalist side. The Pat Finucane murder? No action.
The Loughinisland Massacre during the 1994 World Cup game between Ireland and Italy? No action.
The Dublin/Monaghan bombings of 1974 that left 33 dead? No handover of papers from the British government as promised. Oops.
The top human rights attorney was killed, as were six innocent men, including an 87-year-old watching a football match, as were 33 innocent civilians in Dublin and Monaghan yet there has been no resolution whatever.
Talk about one law for the Brits.
ESPN2 aired an excellent program on the Loughinisland case this week called "Ceasefire Massacre."
The documentary showed that the killings reek of high level British security involvement. Even former UVF figure Billy Hutchinson conceded on the program there was something very fishy.
But good luck if you are seeking a follow-up. So many of the killings during the dirty war were carried out by gunmen acting on the orders of high level secret British forces who covered their tracks well.
I could go on, but it is clear there is really only one target and that is the senior figures in Sinn Fein like Adams, who present such a threat to the established order that they will do anything to bring them down.
The anti-Sinn Feiners are running very scared at the moment. Recent opinion polls in the Irish Republic show the Sinn Fein vote soaring in the upcoming European elections.
In the north, with an increasing nationalist population, there is a decent chance soon of a Sinn Fein led Northern government.
What if they also come to power in the south?
No wonder the spooks are out in full flight.
Adams has little to fear. The tragic circumstances of Jean McConville's death are lost in the mist of time with witnesses long passed on.
Which is why this is such a cynical move at this time. There is zero chance of conviction but the real game is stopping Sinn Fein. They will stoop as low as they can in that regard.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/nial...z30d4xwYs9
Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook

[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.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z30dU6TLn8
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Magda Hassan]

30 April 2014 Last updated at 22:32

McGurk's Bar bombing: 69-year-old man released

The loyalist paramilitary attack at McGurk's Bar in Belfast killed 15 people in December, 1971


A 69-year-old man has been released unconditionally after being arrested in connection with a pub bombing which killed 15 people.
The attack at McGurk's Bar in Belfast on 4 December, 1971, was carried out by the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The man was released after being detained at Antrim police station.
Police have recently reopened the case following a critical report into the original RUC murder investigation.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the IRA was blamed for placing the bomb.
In February 2011, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman published a report claiming the original Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police investigation was "biased".
Following the publication, the Historical Enquiries Team, and more recently PSNI detectives in Serious Crime Branch, began a review of the case.
It is the second arrest in the reopened investigation in as many months.
In March, detectives arrested a 75-year-old man in east Belfast, but following questioning he was released unconditionally.
One man was convicted of all 15 murders in 1978.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27222564

[Magda Hassan]

Sinn Fein mystery as ex-IRA leaders step down

Belfast Telegraph Political Editor Liam Clarke


By Liam Clarke 13 February 2014

Sinn Fein is better even than the DUP at avoiding washing its dirty linen in public and keeping the lid on internal discussions.

At times, judging what is going on within such parties is like Cold War Kremlinology. That was the mixture of art and science by which, in the face of official secrecy and an unwaveringly positive party line from communist parties, Kremlin watchers pored over attendances at the party conference and who was on the reviewing stand on revolutionary anniversaries for clues.
Sinn Fein's recent activity reveals that there are a number of faces now missing from the party structures. Two of them are Leo Green , who has stepped down as northern political director, and Jackie McMullan, who left the party's Stormont staff. Both men are former IRA prisoners and hunger strikers and had won respect from political opponents for their ability.
It is something of a misnomer that ex-prisoners working in the Sinn Fein apparatus are hardliners. Leo Green, in particular, was looked on as a progressive and pragmatic voice, in spite of having killed a policeman.
So was Paul Kavanagh, the former bomber, who was Martin McGuinness's special adviser until he was forcibly removed from his position as a result of Jim Allister's bill.
Kavanagh was very much in evidence at the ard fheis, but Green was not. When Ken Reid of UTV and Mark Devenport, his BBC counterpart, tweeted about his absence, and Reid speculated that he had left the party, both men got personal texts from him to choke off speculation.
Green said he had renewed his membership of Sinn Fein on January 24 and that he had not left over any single issue. We are none the wiser except that this man, who cut his political teeth under IRA army discipline, is not about to break ranks with his comrades and speak his mind.
The rumour is that, among other issues, he felt the party had pushed too far in opposition to welfare reform, but this is denied by Sinn Fein. "There are no policy issues, because the people you are talking about remain in the party," Alex Maskey told the BBC.
Conor Murphy, now the abstentionist MP for Newry and Armagh and another former IRA prisoner, is busy brushing off rumours that he pushing for a return to Stormont.
Kremlinologists in the other parties think he could then be positioned to eventually succeed Martin McGuinness, but Murphy, who is publicly happy with any task the party gives him, has done nothing to fuel the speculation. Judging from the ard fheis, in spite of a media heave against him, Gerry Adams is firmly in control, with a standing ovation before he even rose to speak. Bobby Storey, a former IRA director of intelligence and an Adams loyalist through every twist and turn of the peace process, is now northern chairman.
People note movement in the seating arrangements. Michelle Gildernew, another abstentionist MP, who used to be a Stormont minister, complained in December 2012 that leaving Stormont had been "like a wake" and that it had even affected her mental health.
This year, she was to the fore in the ard fheis and on the party's ruling ard comhairle. Can we expect a comeback to Stormont for the charismatic Gildernew?
Last year, we glimpsed what ordinary republicans thought of things through a survey of 50 ard fheis attendees, which the Belfast Telegraph carried out at the conference. This year, permission was refused.
Sinn Fein is battening down that hatches before the elections and that leaves plenty of room for speculation.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/debate...05932.html

[Magda Hassan]

IRA fugitives given 'letters of comfort' are linked to 300 killings

Unionist anger as full extent of Tony Blair's secret deal with Sinn Féin is revealed

• Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
  
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 8 May 2014
  

Drew Harris gives evidence to the Northern Ireland select committee about the IRA 'on the runs' who were given amnesty letters. Photograph: PA

Almost 100 IRA fugitives who were given "letters of comfort" from Tony Blair's government stating they were no longer wanted for past crimes are suspects in nearly 300 murder cases, a senior police commander admitted on Wednesday.
Drew Harris, assistant chief constable of the PSNI, initially told MPs each of the IRA "on the runs" included notorious individuals who were linked to 200 murder investigations immediately angering unionists already unhappy with the so-called "get-out-of-jail" scheme.
But shortly afterwards, the PSNI was forced to clarify Harris's Westminster testimony by pointing out that these 95 IRA recipients of the letters were of interest in connection with 295 killings from the Troubles between 1969 and 1998.
Northern Ireland's top police officers were giving evidence to the Northern Ireland select committee about the secret scheme Blair's administration hatched with Sinn Féin as part of a wider compact to secure IRA decommissioning of arms and later Sinn Féin's support for policing and the rule of law.
The secret scheme was exposed in the collapse of the prosecution relating to the 1982 Hyde Park bomb atrocity, which killed four soldiers. John Downey was released in February after his legal team produced a letter from 2007, which suggested he would not be prosecuted.
Harris told MPs there were 228 people who had received the letters. He said that some were "notorious, without a doubt" before revealing that "95 of these individuals are linked in some way or other to 200 murder investigations. But that linkage may only be intelligence. And all of that is now being assessed". On hearing that figure, Ian Paisley Jr, the Democratic Unionist party MP, told the committee: "I must say, it breaks my heart today, as a citizen of Northern Ireland, as a citizen of the United Kingdom, 95 people are holding letters excusing the murder of 200 people. That breaks my heart."
Shortly after the hearing ended, the PSNI released a clarification: "A review is currently under way of the 228 names involved in Operation Rapid; 95 of these are linked to 200 incidents involving 295 murders. The link can take a number of forms including intelligence."
Sitting alongside Harris, his chief constable, Matt Baggott, added that only five individuals who had received the letters were now wanted as part of live police investigations for serious crimes including murder. Facing questions from North Down MP Sylvia Hermon, Harris also confirmed there had been only one conviction of an IRA fugitive for a past Troubles crime out of the "on the runs" who had received the letters of assurance.
The chief constable said that a thorough investigation "Operation Redfield" was under way into every IRA "on the run" who got the so called "get-out-of-jail" letter. He admitted that on this matter to date the police had "failed".
But Baggott stressed that the PSNI would not give up on investigations into unsolved Troubles-related crimes before 1998, despite the Downey judgment which he described as "unique" to this issue.
He also confirmed that before the establishment in 2007 of a specialist police unit established to deal with unsolved crimes from the conflict the historical inquiries team the investigation files into the 228 IRA "on the runs" whom the Blair government had given the letters to had been closed.
The chief constable repeated his apology during the session in front of MPs about the PSNI's mistakes in handling the letter sent to Downey. However, Baggott stressed that the letters were "not amnesties". An inquiry into the on-the-run letters headed by Lady Justice Hallett, which was ordered by David Cameron, is due to report in the summer.
The disclosure was seized upon by hardline unionists opposed to the power sharing government in Stormont. Traditional Unionist Voice leader and European election candidate Jim Allister described the revelation as "yet another shocking part of the callous betrayal of victims which this scheme involved".
The issue of "get-out-of-jail" cards for IRA fugitives wanted for murder has become one of the most controversial issues from the past to haunt the Northern Ireland peace process.
Some victims of IRA violence have begun legal action to test the legal validity of the scheme.
Elizabeth Morrison a 79-year-old grandmother who lost three members of her family in the IRA bomb on Belfast's loyalist Shankill Road in 1993 just two days after her husband died has filed papers challenging the controversial deal at Belfast high court.
She has taken the case to try to secure court orders to cancel the on-the-run scheme and discover whether anyone suspected of the Shankill bombing in which nine Protestant civilians were killed has received one of the comfort letters.
The Northern Ireland Office, whose officials originally helped draft the letters of assurance scheme, have refused to disclose to the widow if any of the "on the runs" happen to be suspects in the Shankill bomb massacre.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/...CMP=twt_gu

[Magda Hassan]

Bombing claim made against Sinn Féin's Adams & McGuinness

Wednesday 23 April 2014 19.09

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have denied the allegations
A former IRA prisoner said he was instructed to carry out a bombing by Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
The party has said allegations by Peter Rogers are untrue.
Mr Rogers told the BBC Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness ordered him to transport explosives to Britain in 1980.
The 69-year-old is a former IRA prisoner who escaped from the Maidstone Prison Ship in 1972.
Eight years later, he was jailed in Ireland for the IRA murder of a garda.
Detective Garda Seamus Quaid was shot and killed after his patrol stopped a vehicle in Co Wexford on 13 October 1980.
Another officer was injured in the attack.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said: "There is no truth in these allegations. Gerry Adams has already publicly refuted these claims."
But Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) East Derry MP Gregory Campbell claimed the republican leaders needed to come clean.
He asked: "How long will they continue their pretence? The terror happened, it is now over.
"They need to admit their part in it, face whatever consequences there may be and move on."
The Sinn Féin president has always denied being in the IRA, while Mr McGuinness said he left in the early 1970s.
Mr Campbell said: "The latest revelation from former IRA prisoner Peter Rogers that he had been instructed by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to carry out a bombing in England in 1980 is further evidence of Sinn Féin's attempt to live in denial about their past."
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0423/610542-...cguinness/