Police in Northern Ireland arrested Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles – the 1972 kidnapping, murder and secret burial of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten children whose killing is an unhealed wound in Ulster.

The 65-year old politician voluntarily went to the Antrim police station on Wednesday night to be questioned in the murder.  Two IRA veterans who gave taped interviews to researchers for a Boston College research project implicated Adams in the killing.  The Northern Ireland police took legal steps to acquire the interviews, parts of which have already been published after one IRA interviewee died.  Before his arrest, Adams said he was “innocent of any part” in the murder.

“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.”

Jean McConville was abducted from her home by twelve people in the Divis Flat area of West Belfast in December 1972, amid rumors she had been an informant for the police.  She had been shot in the head, but her body wasn’t found until 2003 – four years after the Irish Republican Army admitted it had killed her.