Former IRA chief questioned over Jean McConville murder

A former senior IRA commander was last night being questioned by PSNI detectives in connection with the abduction and murder of Jean McConville.

Officers from the PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch yesterday arrested the 77-year-old man in west Belfast and were last night questioning him at Antrim police station. The PSNI, in providing details of the arrest, did not name the suspect.

Jean McConville, one of the Disappeared, was abducted from her flat in the Divis area of west Belfast in December, 1972 by a gang of IRA men and women. The body of the 37-year-old mother of 10 was recovered from Shelling Hill beach, Co Louth, in August 2003.

For years, the IRA denied involvement in her murder. But following a campaign by a pressure group, Families of the Disappeared, the organisation in 1999 admitted it had abducted and killed Ms McConville and eight others.

The Disappeared
That year, the British and Irish governments set up the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains to try to recover the bodies of the Disappeared. The bodies of seven of the 17 known Disappeared have been recovered.

The man arrested yesterday was a senior IRA figure in Belfast and the North during the 1970s and up to the mid-1980s when he left due to the republican “Armalite and ballot” policy.

He was one of the IRA leaders in Belfast during the time of Ms McConville’s abduction and was later to become the head of the IRA’s Northern Command.

No one has been convicted for Ms McConville’s murder.

Gerry Adams was also a senior IRA figure in Belfast at the time of her death. He has consistently denied any involvement in her disappearance and killing and has also denied he was in the IRA at that or any other time.