IRA abduction and murder Jean McConville

DETECTIVES from the PSNI’s Terrorist Investigation Unit probing the abduction and murder of Jean McConville in 1972 have arrested a 73 year old man.

He was detained by TIU detectives in the Dunmurry area of west Belfast this morning under the Terrorism Act.

Detective Inspector Neil McGuiness said: “He has been taken to the  Serious Crime Suite at Antrim police station for questioning”.

Mother-of-ten Jean McConville was abducted by an IRA gang from her Divis Flats home and taken away for questioning before being shot dead and secretly buried.

Her remains were found on a beach in Co Louth over 30 years later.

Police believe that Gerry Adams was the IRA’s leader in Belfast at the time of her abduction and murder.

Former IRA man Brendan Hughes told researchers on the Boston College tapes project that Adams sanctioned the 37-year-old’s murder.

Hughes said: “There was only one man who gave that order for that woman to be executed – and that man is now the head of Sinn Féin.”

Hughes also said on tape that Adams went to the McConville children after their mother was abducted and promised an internal IRA investigation.

“That man is the man who gave the order for that woman to be executed. I did not give the order to execute that woman. He did.”

Sinn Fein president Adams was arrested in May and spent five days and four nights in police custody.

Police had considered charging Adams with IRA membership before releasing him.

However, senior detectives decided to refer a file on his interviews to the Public Prosecution Service for consideration.

The Louth TD said at the time he planned to complain about the food served up to him at the serious crime suite in Antrim saying it was “inedible’’.