Gerry Adams held over notorious IRA murder

Northern Ireland police today questioned Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, a chief negotiator in the Irish peace process, over the notorious IRA murder of a woman suspected of being an informant in 1972.
The 65-year-old republican leader was arrested last night over the killing of mother-of-ten Jean McConville after voluntarily attending a police station in Antrim, Northern Ireland, for an interview.
Adams strongly rejected any involvement in the murder - one of the most infamous incidents in Northern Ireland's violent history - saying in a statement that the allegations were "malicious".
"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," he said.

Sinn Fein was once the political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitary group, which waged a bloody campaign over three decades for British-controlled Northern Ireland to become part of Ireland.
The party now shares power with the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the devolved government in Belfast. It is also represented in the Irish parliament in Dublin.

Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said Adams's arrest was "politically motivated", as it came three weeks ahead of local and European Parliament elections.
McConville, a 37-year-old widow with ten children, was snatched from her home in west Belfast, becoming one of more than a dozen so-called "disappeared" of the conflict. She had been shot in the back of the head.

The IRA accused her of being an informer for the British army, although a police watchdog later found no evidence to support the claim.
McConville's son Michael, who was 11 years old when he saw his mother dragged away, said he was pleased that the police were "doing their job".
However, he admitted in a BBC interview that he still refused to name the people he saw taking his mother, saying he still feared reprisals.
"If I told the police a thing either me or one of my family members or one of my children would get shot by these people," he said.

Nobody has ever been found guilty of McConville's murder, but former IRA leader Ivor Bell, 77, was last month charged with aiding and abetting those involved.