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IRA murder: Cops apologise
14/08/2006 15:33 - (SA)
Belfast - Police failed to investigate the Irish Republican Army kidnapping and execution of a Belfast woman for 23 years, an external police-complaints official ruled on Monday in the latest chapter of one of Northern Ireland's most heart-wrenching killings.
The disappearance of Jean McConville from her Belfast home in December 1972 has received exceptional attention because her 10 children were split up and placed into different foster homes, growing up as strangers to each other.
A decade ago, McConville's eldest daughter launched a campaign to make the IRA admit responsibility for killing her and more than a dozen other missing people.
IRA admitted to murder
The IRA in 1999 admitted it secretly killed McConville and eight others, all Catholic civilians, and buried them in unmarked graves from 1972 to 1981 - a policy the outlawed group continues to justify on the grounds that all their victims were suspected British spies.
The IRA identified her burial spot as a beach in the Irish Republic, but - as her children maintained a months-long vigil - extensive excavations uncovered no remains.
A man walking his dog on a cliff top overlooking the beach stumbled across her remains in 2003.
Disappearance not investigated
The official who investigates complaints against the police, police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, said detectives never bothered to investigate McConville's disappearance at the time - and opened the case only in response to the children's campaign for justice that began in 1995.
"There is no crime file about any investigation of the abduction in 1972," said O'Loan, who noted that police received intelligence reports that McConville might have been abducted, but might also have abandoned her children by choice.
She said the police had a duty to investigate - particularly after receiving reports that McConville had been taken by the IRA across the border into the Irish Republic and might still have been alive in January 1973 - but had failed to do so.
Police resources overwhelmed
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it accepted O'Loan's criticisms, but noted that 1972 was the most ferociously chaotic year of Northern Ireland's 37-year-old conflict, and police resources were overwhelmed.
"The idea of a mother being prised away from her children and taken away to be murdered is repulsive," the police force said in a statement. "Police policy and practice into how it deals with missing persons and how it conducts investigations has changed significantly since 1972. We apologise unreservedly to the family for any failings made by police."
The statement noted that in 1972, police recorded 10 631 shootings and 1 853 explosions that killed 470 people and wounded almost 5 000 others. "Policing operated in an entirely different environment than it does today," it said.
O'Loan last month concluded there was no evidence to back up the IRA's allegation McConville had been spying for the British army. The IRA retorted that its own internal investigation confirmed the evidence, but refused to provide any.
- AP
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