Two involved in BC project on Troubles wade into legal fight

Boston College has filed motions to quash two sets of subpoenas issued by US prosecutors, on behalf of unidentified law enforcement officials in the United Kingdom, seeking any information related to the 1972 abduction, killing, and secret burial of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10. While the Police Service of Northern Ireland is the law enforcement agency charged with investigating McConville’s death, the court order authorizing the subpoenas remains sealed.

The IRA has admitted it killed McConville because she was suspected of being an informer. Her remains were recovered in the Republic of Ireland in 2003. At least two former IRA members who took part in the oral history project, Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, said Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams ordered McConville’s abduction, execution, and burial. Adams has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Prosecutors are seeking the interviews of IRA members, not those of British loyalist fighters who also took part in the oral history project, leading critics to dismiss the probe as a politically motivated attempt to embarrass or possibly prosecute Adams.

Federal prosecutors had initially sought only the interviews McIntyre carried out with Hughes and Price, and BC turned over the Hughes interviews, saying its promise of confidentiality ended with his death in 2008.

But BC lawyers say turning other interviews over would endanger the participants, the peace process in Northern Ireland, and academic freedom.

As part of the project, which originated in the 1990s, Boston College promised Irish republican and British loyalist former combatants that their oral histories would not be released until their deaths.

Prosecutors contend that BC lacked authority to grant that confidentiality and that no academic privilege exists when a crime is involved. Last month, they issued more subpoenas asking for interviews that refer to McConville’s killing.