IRA’s burial of ‘informers’ unjustified: McGuinness

The IRA’s killing and burying of victims accused of passing information to the British security services during the Northern conflict was cruel and unjustified, said Martin McGuinness.

The senior Sinn Féin member appealed for anybody with information about undiscovered remains of the Disappeared to give it to somebody in authority.

Jean McConville, a widowed mother-of-10, was among 17 people abducted, killed and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles. Members of the IRA claimed some of the victims had “informed” on their activities to the authorities.

Mr McGuinness said: “What happened to those families was totally and absolutely wrong. I believe it was cruel, I believe it was unjustified. Of course, the IRA were responsible.”

Mrs McConville, a widow, was killed after she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her home in west Belfast’s Divis flats. The IRA claimed she was an informer.

Her remains were finally found at Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth in Aug 2003.

Ms McConville’s IRA killers tried to silence her son days after she vanished, it has been revealed.

Michael McConville, who was 11 when his mother was snatched from her west Belfast home in 1972, was abducted, beaten and threatened at gunpoint by young republicans intent on keeping her disappearance quiet.