Sinn Fein Leader Arrested for 1972 Murder

Updated: Thursday, 7:03 ET

The leader of the Irish republican group Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, was placed under arrest Wednesday for suspected involvement in the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, one of Northern Ireland’s “Disappeared.”

Adams denied any part in the murder before turning himself in to police in Northern Ireland.

McConville, 37, was a widowed mother of 10 when she was abducted in front of her children in Belfast by the Irish Republican Army, shot, and buried in secret after being wrongfully accused of being an informer, the BBC reports. Her body was found at a beach in County Louth in 2003 and several arrests related to her case have been made in recent months.

“While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs. McConville,” Adams said in a statement. He called her killing “a grievous injustice to her and her family.”

[BBC]