PSNI in America per ritirare i nastri del Boston College

PSNI in US to collect Boston tapes

Two detectives from PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch have travelled to Boston to obtain recorded tapes containing information on the so-called Disappeared.

It comes after a US Supreme Court judge upheld a ruling in April that the material should be handed over to the authorities investigating the murder of Jean McConville.

“The officers will return to Northern Ireland to assess the material and continue with their inquiries,” a PSNI spokesperson confirmed.

The recordings were carried out under the supervision of the Boston College researchers Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre.

The discussions known as the ‘Boston College tapes’ began in 2001 with republican and loyalist paramilitaries to form part of an oral history of the Troubles.

Ex-IRA member Dolours Price was one of the interviewees, and it is claimed the former prisoner discussed the disappearance of Jean McConville.

The mother of ten was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1972. Her body was recovered more than 30 years later.

The interviews were conducted under the assurance that the tapes would not be made public while the subjects were still alive. Price was found dead at her home in Dublin in January this year.

Former IRA member Brendan Hughes, who also took part in the project, died in 2008.
Authorities investigating Mrs McConville’s disappearance had called for the US government to subpoena the documents, invoking a treaty between the UK and USA.

But Moloney and McIntyre – himself a former IRA man-turned-writer – had argued that the tapes should be withheld under the First Amendment.

An American court refused to hear an appeal lodged by Moloney and McIntyre in April.