Look Who it Was Random video

Gerry Adams released in Antrim, Al Jazeera cover Press Conference live

1,706 views · Published 4 May 2014 · 9:14 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: Public Enquiry · 2014 · News & Politics

Watch on YouTube

So are we now going to have a week of BBC TV coverage of these killings?
Is THAT evidence being passed on to public prosecutors too?
http://www.britisharmykillings.org.uk/category/21/The-Suspects

Gerry Adams freed without charge after questioning over McConville case
Sinn Féin president says his party 'remains wedded' to new policing dispensation after release from police station
Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent Sunday 4 May 2014 21.15 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/04/gerry-adams-to-be-freed-without-charge
Gerry Adams has been released without charge from a Northern Ireland police station but a file on him will be sent to the public prosecution service, it has emerged.
The Sinn Féin president was released at 5.45pm on Sunday from the serious crimes suite at Antrim police station.
He was being questioned about the murder in 1972 of widow Jean McConville. He has denied both any involvement in the killing, and membership of the IRA.
Armoured vehicles and a large phalanx of police officers in riot gear carrying shields moved out of the police station shortly after 7pm. They were deployed to clear dozens of loyalists from the front of the police base who had sat on the road.
But it transpired that the security operation was a decoy to divert the loyalists from the back of the station where Adams and his entourage left by car.
Speaking less than an hour after his release, Adams stressed that he still supported the PSNI despite his arrest and detention for almost five days.
Adams said his party "remains wedded" to the new policing dispensation in Northern Ireland.
His remarks indicate that there is no short term prospect of Sinn Féin withdrawing support for the police -- a move that could have triggered the collapse of the power sharing executive at Stormont.
He also singled out journalist Ed Moloney and Boston College researcher Anthony McIntyre -- an ex-IRA prisoner -- for pointed criticism.
Adams alleged that some of those anonymous IRA members who gave interviews "said we should be shot" for the Good Friday Agreement and policing.
"I reject all the allegations in these tapes", the former West Belfast MP told the press conference at a Belfast hotel.
Repeating his denial of having any involvement in the McConville murder, Adams said: "I extend sympathy once again to the McConville family and all those who have suffered at the hands of Republicans."
The Sinn Féin president and member of the Irish parliament said he had never disassociated himself from the IRA and never would.
Addressing the McConville family particularly the oldest son, Adams said: "My message to Michael McConville ... we cannot bring Mrs McConville back." He said the murder of their mother "was a grave injustice ... I regret very much what happened".
He also criticised the food provided to him during his incarceration which he described as "un-eatable". Adams said: "I didn't eat for the first couple of days because the food couldn't be digested."
Earlier, the fallout from the row over his arrest produced an angry exchange within the power-sharing executive at Stormont with the first minister, Peter Robinson, accusing Sinn Féin of trying to blackmail the police.
Peter Robinson said he hoped the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) would not bend to "republican bullyboy tactics".
Robinson said: "The protest action taken by Sinn Féin is unacceptable in any democratic country operating under the rule of law. The publicly conveyed threat to the PSNI delivered by the highest levels of Sinn Féin that they will reassess their attitude to policing if Gerry Adams is charged is a despicable, thuggish attempt to blackmail the PSNI.
"The threat now means that ordinary, decent citizens will conclude that the PSNI and the PPS [Public Prosecution Service] have succumbed to a crude and overt political threat if Adams is not charged. The PSNI must not be the subject of republican bullyboy tactics."
The first minister's remarks are a measure of the acrimony between the two main parties in the regional devolved government, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin, over Adams's detention.
Sinn Féin junior minister and former IRA Old Bailey bomber Gerry Kelly was allowed into Antrim police station to visit Adams on Sunday afternoon.
Kelly said Adams believed his detention was politically motivated and that it had been "mishandled."
Kelly said his party leader was "worried about the damage that it may be doing to the image of policing as well. This is quite a serious situation."
Kelly said that Adams told him that the police also quizzed Adams about books he wrote over the last 40 years and showed him photographs from the Troubles.
The Sinn Féin minister's visit was highly unusual because normally only a doctor or lawyer can visit a suspect in a police station in Northern Ireland.
Separately, a group of Ulster loyalists arrived near Antrim police station where Adams has spent a fifth day being questioned by detectives.

More from this channel