The TroublesSinn Féin’s president Gerry Adams arrested over 1972 murder

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams was arrested on Wednesday for questioning about one of the most notorious IRA murders during the Troubles.

Detectives in Antrim questioned Adams about the execution of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10 who was dragged from her west Belfast home in 1972, tortured, and shot in the back of the head.

McConville was one of the “Disappeared” – IRA victims whose bodies were buried so they would never be found — and her body was not discovered until 2003.

Adams has always denied any involvement in her killing, but former IRA members, in testimony recorded for a history project at Boston College, claimed he directed the murder.

The Telegraph reports that it is the first time that Adams has been arrested since the 1970s, when he was interned on at least two occasions.

In a statement, Adams said he had agreed to meet the Police Service of Northern Ireland [PSNI] voluntarily. He added: “As a republican leader I have never shirked my responsibility to build the peace.

“This includes dealing with the difficult issue of victims and their families. Insofar as it is possible I have worked to bring closure to victims and their families who have contacted me. Even though they may not agree, this includes the family of Jean McConville.

“I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family.

“Well-publicized, malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject these. While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs. McConville.”

McConville, 37, was abducted from her flat in the Divis area of Belfast in December 1972 by the IRA, which claimed she was an informer. Her body found in August 2003 buried on a beach in County Louth. Forensic tests showed she had been badly beaten and shot in the back of the head.

Adams’s arrest and questioning follows a ruling by a court in the United States which compelled Boston College to hand over to the PSNI recorded interviews with veteran IRA members about McConville’s murder.

Boston College interviewed several former IRA members and former loyalist paramilitaries about the Troubles for the Boston College Belfast Project, on the understanding that transcripts of the interviews would not be made public until after their deaths. That commitment was invalidated last year when a court ordered that tapes containing claims about McConville’s killing be given to detectives in Northern Ireland. One interviewee, the former IRA commander Brendan Hughes, died in 2008, and in the interview with him he said that that Adams was a senior IRA leader during the Troubles and had ordered McConville’s killing.

Old Bailey bomber Dolours Price, who died last year, also made it public that she had given an interview to Boston College about McConville’s death in which she made similar allegations about Adams’s involvement in the killing.

The disclosures by Hughes and Price led lawyers representing the PSNI to start a legal process in the United States to have the Boston tapes turned over to them. A U.S. court agreed, and the transcripts of the interviews were handed over to PSNI. In the last two months, PSNI detectives intensified their investigation into the McConville killing, making a series of arrests.

The Telegraph notes that in March, Ivor Bell, 77, a veteran republican from Ramoan Gardens in the Andersonstown district of west Belfast, was charged with aiding and abetting in the murder. He denies the charges.

Bell, Adams’s one-time republican comrades who, like Hughes became a bitter critic of the Sinn Féin’s president, is currently on bail after being charged in connection to the McConville murder. Bell was expelled from the IRA in the early 1980s after being accused of attempting to stage an internal coup against its leadership.

Five others have been detained and questioned by detectives.

Gerry Adams has repeatedly denied having any part in Jean McConville’s murder.

The Guardian reports that just before Adams walked into the police station on Wednesday evening, he denied that he had anything to with the McConville murder. Adams also rejected recent claims by former IRA bomber and convicted killer Peter Rogers that he and the Sinn Féin deputy first minister Martin McGuinness had ordered him to transport explosives to bomb Britain in 1980.