Sinn Fein’s leader Adams freed

Associated Press

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND

Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams was released without charge Sunday after five days of police questioning over his purported involvement in a decades-old IRA killing of a Belfast mother of 10, an investigation that has driven a dangerous wedge into Northern Ireland’s unity government.

Addressing reporters and supporters at a Belfast hotel, Adams said he wanted his party to provide help to the children of Jean McConville, the 37-year-old widow taken from her home by the Irish Republican Army in 1972, killed and dumped in an unmarked grave. He also rejected claims by IRA veterans in audiotaped interviews that he had ordered the killing.

“I am innocent of any involvement in any conspiracy to abduct, kill or bury Mrs. McConville. I have worked hard with others to have this injustice redressed,” said Adams, 65, who has led Sinn Fein since 1983 and won credit for steering the IRA toward cease-fires and compromise with Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority.

Yet the investigation of Adams is not over. Police said they have sent an evidence file to Northern Ireland prosecutors for potential charges later. “For all I know, I can still face charges,” Adams said.

He said he had been interviewed 33 times during 92 hours in custody. “One presumes they would have made a charge against me. But they offered no evidence against me whatsoever.”

Most of McConville’s 10 children, aged 6 to 17 at the time of her disappearance, were placed in separate foster homes and grew up as strangers to each other. On Sunday they expressed disappointment, but no surprise, at Adams’ freedom.