Family's pain over IRA statement

Today’s IRA statement insisting Jean McConville was an informer has caused more pain to her family, her daughter said tonight.

Family's pain over IRA statement

Today’s IRA statement insisting Jean McConville was an informer has caused more pain to her family, her daughter said tonight.

The group always claimed the Belfast mother-of-ten, whom it murdered and secretly buried 34 years ago, passed on information to the British security forces.

The North’s Police Ombudsman declared yesterday that Mrs McConville had never been an informer but the IRA flatly contradicted this today.

Daughter Helen McKendry said the Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan had confirmed her mother’s innocence and rejected the IRA’s counter claims.

“They can’t put a statement out saying they murdered an innocent woman, so this is their way of justifying what they did,” Ms McKendry said tonight.

“We thought things would die down and we could start grieving and get some sort of peace but there’s always something brings it back.”

The IRA insisted in its statement that a thorough investigation had confirmed that Mrs McConville was working as an informer for the British Army.

The terror group said it carried out its inquiry following a ‘public request’ from Mrs McConville’s family.

It said it reported its conclusions to Mrs McConville’s son Michael but said it accepts that he rejects them.

“That investigation confirmed that Jean McConville was working as an informer for the British Army,” the statement said.

It added: “The IRA regrets the suffering of all the families whose loved ones were killed and buried by the IRA.”

The Provisionals always claimed Mrs McConville, who was seized as she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her front door in December 1972, worked for British intelligence agencies.

Public pressure forced them into making an apology for the murder of the Belfast woman, but they never withdrew the slur.

Her remains were found on a beach near Dundalk, Co Louth in August 2003 – one of the nine of the so-called Disappeared who were murdered by the IRA and secretly buried during the 1970s.

Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan launched her own inquiry after complaints by the McConville family into the police investigation of the killing.

Mrs O’Loan said yesterday that it was not her normal role to confirm or deny the identity of people working as agents for the security services.

But she added: “However, this situation is unique. Jean McConville left an orphaned family, the youngest of whom were six-year-old boys. The family have suffered extensively over the years, as we all know, and that suffering has only been made worse by allegations that their mother was an informant.

“As part of our investigation we have looked very extensively at all the intelligence available at the time. There is no evidence that Mrs McConville gave information to the police, the military or the security service. She was not an informant.”

Nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan accused the IRA of issuing a negative and self-serving statement.

The Foyle MP said: “It is deeply regrettable that the McConville family continues to be denied justice for their mother’s memory.

“I hope the McConville family can take comfort from the fact that decent people fully accept the verdict from the Police Ombudsman and are likely to be cynical about another self-serving version of events from the IRA.”

Mr Durkan said not only did the IRA owe the McConville family an explanation, the police also needed to apologise for the way they pursued the investigation.

The SDLP leader noted that that request had also been made by the family.

Mr Durkan said the IRA’s record in investigating informers was hardly credible.

“This is the same IRA whose intelligence and investigations did not know about Stakeknife or Denis Donaldson,” the SDLP leader said.

“This is an IRA who killed some of its own members as informers in events that were really about protecting highly placed informers.

“So no real credibility will be attached to their continued attempts to malign the memory of Jean McConville.”

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