SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams has again rejected various allegations contained in the book, Voices From the Graveby Ed Moloney, including denying that he was ever in the IRA.
Mr Adams gave short broadcast interviews yesterday, telling the BBC and UTV that he was not involved in the 1972 murder and disappearance of mother of 10 children, Jean McConville, whose remains were recovered buried in Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth in 2003.
The allegations were made posthumously by the late Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, a former senior IRA leader in Belfast.
He made the claims in a series of interviews to Boston College on condition they would not be released until after his death. Mr Hughes died in 2008.
“I reject absolutely that allegation,” Mr Adams said yesterday of the claim that he ordered the murder of Ms McConville. “These are deeply serious allegations. My position on this is very, very clear,” he added.
“I have said my piece and I am not going to feed this story and respond to these type of untruthful and very, very vicious and malicious allegations,” said Mr Adams.
He also denied Mr Hughes’s allegation that he was involved in the “Bloody Friday” bombing attacks in Belfast in 1972 in which nine people were killed and 130 people maimed and injured.
“I reject absolutely these various allegations and I find them offensive.
“I am sure the families involved find them deeply offensive,” said Mr Adams.
Asked was Mr Hughes lying he said, “I have already said what I want to say on that.”
When a UTV reporter, Sharon O’Neill, put the question to him: “Why don’t you just admit you were in the IRA?” Mr Adams replied, “Sharon, I wasn’t and don’t be smart.”