Sinn Fein chief Adams still in custody over killing

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was in police custody for a third day today as detectives questioned him over his alleged role in the Irish Republican Army killing of a Belfast mother of 10 in 1972.

Under British anti-terrorist law Adams, 65, must be charged or released by tonight, unless a judge approves an extension. Other senior figures in Adams’ Irish nationalist party have accused those behind Wednesday’s arrest of their leader of pursuing an anti-Sinn Fein agenda.

Adams, who as Sinn Fein chief since 1983 is Europe’s longest-serving party leader, denies any role in the outlawed IRA. But former members who spoke on tape to a Boston College-commissioned research project have linked him to the abduction, slaying and secret burial of Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow whom the IRA branded a British spy.

The daughter who has led a two-decade campaign for the truth says she’s praying for a murder charge — and is prepared to name publicly those IRA members she believes are responsible. Her other siblings say they’re too afraid to do this because it could inspire IRA attacks on themselves or their children.

“What are they going to do to me? They have done so much to me in the last 42 years. Are they going to come and put a bullet in my head? Well, they know where I live,” Helen McKendry told the BBC Newsnight program.