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Dalla tomba Brendan Hughes accusa Gerry Adams di aver ucciso Jean McConville

Tape accusing SF boss Gerry Adams of death squad role to air on TV

Gerry Adams - Brendan HughesA voice from the grave will this week be heard alleging Gerry Adams’ role as an IRA chief and leader of a ruthless secret unit — heaping fresh pressure on the Sinn Fein boss.

An audio recording of former IRA commander Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes will feature in a TV documentary fingering him as leader of the squad that murdered disappeared mother-of-10 Jean McConville.

Hughes, an ex-Army Council member, died in 2008, but he gave audio testimony of his role in the Troubles to the archive of Boston College in 2001 saying it could only be released after his death.

While details of his claims about Gerry Adams have been printed before, his tapes are played for the first time in the RTE programme Voices from the Grave on Tuesday night.

Adams has always categorically denied being a member of the IRA or of having any knowledge of Mrs McConville’s disappearance.

On the tapes Hughes, who was a close friend of the Sinn Fein president, clearly claims Adams was responsible for the squad called The Unknowns which took Jean McConville and executed her for being an informer in 1972.

He said Mrs McConville had a transmitter given to her by the British in her Divis flat.

“We took her away and interrogated her and she told us what she was doing. She said she was getting paid by the British to pass on information. Because she was a woman we let her go with a warning. A few weeks later another transmitter was put into her house and she was still co-operating with the British.

“A special squad was brought into the operation then called The Unknowns. If you wanted anyone to be taken away they normally done it. I had no control over this squad. Gerry (Adams) had control over this squad.”

But in the documentary Baroness Nuala O’Loan insists that Jean McConville was not an informer. The former Police Ombudsman said: “I’m satisfied with both the security service and the British army that she was not an informant for them, absolutely satisfied.”

In the tapes Brendan Hughes spoke about how he organised daily IRA operations with Gerry Adams before their joint arrest in 1973.

He said: “In 1973 Gerry was OC (Officer Commanding) of the Belfast Brigade and I was Operations Officer. We met every day to plan what operations were going to take place in the next step in the war. That’s what we were doing the day we were arrested. They beat me with a small hammer.

“I was punched, kicked and interrogated. Adams passed out three times and they revived him with buckets of water.”

He tells how Gerry Adams was responsible for saving his life in the early 1970s when he was chased and shot by British army gunmen.

Hughes said: “I didn’t realise how much blood I had lost. Gerry went and organised a doctor. He sowed up.”

Voices from the Grave will be shown on RTE One on Tuesday, October 26 at 10.15pm
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René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

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