Adams: I was never an IRA leader

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams today denied renewed allegations he was once an IRA leader after claims were made in the posthumous memoirs of a dead former colleague.

Senior republican Brendan Hughes, interviewed prior to his death in 2008, claimed Mr Adams was the IRA chief who ordered the infamous 1972 murder of mother-of-10 Jean McConville who was accused of being a security force informant.

But today the Sinn Féin leader rejected the allegations, repeated his denial of ever being a member of the IRA and blamed the renewed accusations on disgruntled republicans opposed to his party’s peace strategy.

The allegations are contained in a new book 'Voices From The Grave', by author Ed Moloney, but Sinn Féin said the claims are not new and were publicly denied in the past.

But Brendan Hughes, a high profile IRA figure who later became a critic of the peace process and of Sinn Féin, is quoted as having said: “I find it difficult to come to terms (with) the fact that this man (Gerry Adams) has turned his back on everything that we ever did.

“I never carried out a major (IRA) operation without the OK or the order from Gerry.”

His accusations from beyond the grave were gathered by researchers cataloguing accounts of the Troubles from republican and loyalist paramilitaries on condition that they were not released until after their death.

Mr Adams said the wide-ranging allegations, centring on claims he was once an IRA leader in Belfast, were untrue and could be traced back to republicans opposed to Sinn Féin’s peace strategy that helped end the IRA’s armed campaign.

“I knew Brendan Hughes well,” said Mr Adams. “He wasn’t well and hadn’t been for a very long time, including during the time he did these interviews.

“He also carried with him an enormous sense of guilt over events surrounding the first (IRA) hunger strike. However, that is no excuse for his involvement in this book.

“Brendan also opposed the IRA cessations and the peace process. That was his right.

“The fact is that the decisions taken collectively by republicans in recent years have improved the quality of life for people across this island, have ensured the growth of republican politics and created a new and dynamic context in which republicans have the potential to achieve our primary goal of Irish reunification and independence.

“Brendan could and should have been part of this. For a mixture of reasons he wasn’t.”

Mr Hughes was a high-ranking member of the IRA at the height of the Troubles. But as the peace process emerged, he became highly critical of the direction that the Sinn Féin leadership was taking the republican movement. He described the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 as a “British solution”, and he defended the continued use of violence.

He was, however, once a close associate of Mr Adams' and the pair were famously housed together after they were among the many republicans and nationalists interned without trial during the early years of the Troubles.

The range of allegations from Mr Hughes include claims that Mr Adams, as an alleged IRA leader, was linked to the murder of Ms McConville, one of the so-called “Disappeared” who were killed by the IRA and secretly buried in the 1970s.

Her body remained undiscovered in an unmarked grave in Co Louth until 2003. Today her bereaved relatives said they would consider a civil action against Mr Adams in the wake of the latest claims, but they nevertheless refused to accept Mr Hughes’ other allegations that their mother was an informant.

Mr Adams said: “I reject absolutely any accusation that I had any hand or part in the killing and disappearing of Jean McConville or in any of the other allegations... The issue of the disappeared is a terrible legacy of the conflict.

“A grievous wrong has been done to these families. Republicans working with the Commission (to locate the bodies of the Disappeared) have being trying to right this wrong for some years.

“The proposal to do this was initiated by me after I was approached by some of the families involved.”

Mr Moloney said he had encouraged the efforts to collect stories from republican and loyalist paramilitaries involved in the conflict to act as a store of information from the Troubles, with the research exercise backed by Boston college in the US.

The author said: “What Brendan Hughes has done here is, first of all, unprecedented in IRA annals.

“It has never happened before that someone like this has come forward, albeit giving interviews that wouldn’t appear until his death, to tell the unvarnished truth as they saw it about what happened and who was involved.”

Responding to Sinn Féin claims that the allegations came from republicans opposed to the peace process, he told the BBC: “It’s pretty disappointing that every time something like this happens, the accusation is made that there is an agenda-driven effort going on here and it’s just not the case.”

Mr Moloney said Mr Hughes was angered by his belief that top republicans had betrayed the IRA.

But Mr Adams, while denying membership of the IRA, added: “I reject any suggestion that I have ever sought to distance myself from the IRA.

“Anyone who recalls the years of conflict and the countless interviews I gave and still give, in which this issue is raised, will know that I was the person most frequently interviewed about the IRA and who defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle during the time of war.

“I also praised the IRA for its courageous decisions to accept a political alternative and to sue for peace.”