11/04/2014

Woman Arrested In West Belfast Over McConville Murder

A 57-year-old woman has been arrested in west Belfast over the 1972 abduction and murder of the 37-year-old mother-of-ten Jean McConville, who is one of the Disappeared.

Mrs McConville was taken from her west Belfast flat by the IRA in front of her children and murdered, she was later accused of being an informer.

Her body was not found until August 2007 at a beach in County Louth.

Nobody has ever charged with the murder.

Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged in connection with the murder and with aiding and abetting murder and membership of the IRA.

A 56-year-old man was also arrested last week over the murder but released later without charges.

The IRA admitted in 1999 that murdered and buried in secret location nine of the 16 Disappeared and a Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains was established by the British and Irish governments that year but despite numerous searches the remains of seven of them have never been found.

(CVS/MH)

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