Boston College’s ‘Belfast project’ archive has dozens of taped testimonies from ex-IRA and loyalist paramilitaries. Photograph: Alamy  The family of IRA "Disappeared" victim Jean McConville have welcomed reports that NBC News in the United States is going to the American courts to obtain the controversial Boston College tapes which are central to the arrest of Gerry Adams over the widow's murder.  NBC News argues that a US supreme court judgment means it should receive copies of the tapes because they are a matter of public interest.  Boston College's "Belfast project" archive has dozens of taped testimonies from ex-IRA and loyalist paramilitaries speaking frankly about their role, and the role of others, in violence during the Northern Ireland Troubles.  A number of these tapes seized by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) through the US courts are being used to examine if there is a case against Adams, over his alleged involvement in the 1972 kidnapping, killing and secret burial of McConville – a crime that has haunted the Sinn Féin president's career.  Adams has vehemently denied the claims of former republican friends and comrades – including Belfast IRA commander Brendan Hughes – that he ordered the murder and secret "disappearance" of the mother of 10 for being an alleged informer. Indeed, the former West Belfast MP denies ever being a member of the IRA.  Helen McKendry, the eldest of McConville's 10 children, along with her husband Seamus McKendry, said seeking to broadcast the material allegedly relating to the murder and secret burial "would do our campaign no harm."  They added: "Anything relating to Jean's murder and disappearance that is amplified in public is to be welcomed. We have nothing to be afraid of so obviously it doesn't worry us if NBC News or any other news organisation were to make that material public, if course they won their case in the States. We have nothing to hide."  The founder of the Belfast project, the award-winning journalist Ed Moloney, said on Wednesday morning that NBC News had written to US judge William Young, requesting it be handed the tapes.  In the letter to the Boston district court judge, which has been published on Moloney's website, Thomas Winter of NBC's news investigations unit says: "This case or any case involving incidents of terrorism and criminality committed by several and various parties representing diverse ideologies both political and religious is a matter of great public interest."  NBC News said it wanted the documents released as soon as possible. Winter argues that US citizens have the right under a 1978 supreme court judgment to gain access to judicial documents.  Moloney and his key researcher on the Belfast project, the ex-IRA prisoner turned author Anthony McIntyre, lost a legal battle to prevent the PSNI seizing tapes that Belfast detectives believed were related to the McConville murder.  The seizure led to the arrest of seven people, including Adams, as PSNI conducts a fresh inquiry into the killing.  Adams's arrest this month, in the middle of European and local government elections on both sides of the Irish border, created a fresh crisis in the political process in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin leaders threatened to withdraw support for the PSNI while Adams was held for four days in an Antrim police station.  However, on his release Adams insisted his party still backed the PSNI and the new policing and judicial arrangements in Northern Ireland.  Even if Northern Irish prosecutors decide there is no criminal case for Adams to answer regarding the McConville murder, the family of the most famous of the "disappeared" have vowed to take civil action against the Sinn Féin leader.
Family of Jean McConville welcome legal bid arguing that release of testimonies from ex-paramilitaries is in public interest