Police get extra 48 hours to quiz Gerry Adams

Northern Ireland police received an extra 48 hours today to question Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams about an Irish Republican Army killing of a Belfast widow, a development that has infuriated his Irish nationalist party and raised questions about the stability of the province's Catholic-Protestant government.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed in a statement its detectives received permission at a closed-door hearing with a judge to detain Adams for up to two more days.
Had the request been refused, Adams would have had to be charged or released by today, two days after his arrest as a suspect in the 1972 abduction, slaying and secret burial of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10. The new deadline is Sunday night, although this too could be extended with judicial permission.

The unexpectedly long detention of Adams left senior party colleagues seething. Sinn Fein warned it could end its support for law and order in Northern Ireland, a key peacemaking commitment that enabled the creation of Northern Ireland's unity government seven years ago, if Adams is charged.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein official who governs Northern Ireland alongside British Protestant politicians, said his party would review its 2007 vote to recognise the legitimacy of Northern Ireland's police if Adams isn't freed without charge. Protestants required that commitment before agreeing to cooperate with Sinn Fein.
McGuinness, who like Adams reputedly was an IRA commander for three decades, said Sinn Fein would "continue to support the reformers within policing" if Adams was freed.

"Or the situation will not work out in the way we believe that it should. If it doesn't, we will have to review that situation," he said.
Moderate politicians criticized Sinn Fein for making unreasonable threats.
The justice minister in Northern Ireland's five-party government, David Ford, told journalists outside the police station where Adams is being held that detectives were just doing their jobs in investigating one of the most heinous crimes of the four-decade conflict. Without specifying any of his government colleagues, Ford said some were seeking to promote instability.