BELFAST, May 6 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – Sinn Fein, the political party most closely associated with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), has told RIA Novosti that it has yet to decide whether to take legal action against a journalist at the center of a row over taped interviews with former IRA members.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has accused the Irish journalist Ed Maloney of slandering him in a book that subsequently led to the republican leaders’ arrest and interrogation by police.
The development came as Boston College, the American institution embroiled in the political crisis, told RIA Novosti it would be returning the tapes to the former paramilitaries who had participated in its controversial research initiative known as the “Belfast Oral History Project.”
Adams criticized the methods Maloney used in writing “Voices From the Grave,” which draws on paramilitary interviews conducted by Boston College.
“This flawed project was exposed when Ed Maloney chose to capitalize on the death of [IRA member] Brendan Hughes and write a book called, ‘Voices From the Grave,’” Adams said.
“No republicans, including myself, who were slandered in that book, were offered the opportunity before publication to rebut the allegations made against them,” Adams said. “Ed Moloney needs to explain that decision.”
Maloney vehemently rejected the Sinn Fein leaders’ criticism.
“I wish to refute this allegation in the strongest possible terms,” Maloney told RIA Novosti. “It is a slur on my professional integrity as a journalist of over thirty years standing who has covered nearly every aspect and participant in the Troubles.”
“There were over 200 interviews from 26 participants housed in the Boston College archive and Mr. Adams has not read them, does not know their full content and aside from two or three names that are in the public domain, does not know who was interviewed,” Maloney added. “He speaks from a position of almost complete ignorance about the archive.”
A spokesman for Sinn Fein told RIA Novosti that their legal team was still to consider possible legal action against Maloney.
Last Wednesday, Adams was arrested and questioned for four days under UK anti-terrorist legislation about the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, who was abducted and executed by the IRA, who accused her of being a British Army informer. Adams was later released without charge and insisted he played no role in the murder or had ever been a member of the IRA.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson warned that if Sinn Fein had not “corrected” its statement about withdrawing republican support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, whilst Adams was being held for questioning, then his party, the DUP, would have sought to exclude them from the power-sharing assembly.
“We would not be slow in bringing forward a motion for their exclusion,” Robinson said in a statement to the Belfast Newsletter, a pro-Unionist newspaper. “Indeed, if Sinn Fein had not corrected their position, the motion would have gone down.”
“I warn Sinn Fein that they have crossed the line and should immediately cease this destructive behavior,” Robinson added.
“The inconsistency of the Deputy First Minister is clear for all to see. He seems incapable of supporting the PSNI when it comes to the investigation of Mr Adams,” Robinson said.
