Gerry Adams to be released without charge this evening

[RB TexLa]

Like we all didn't know what the PSNI was up to.




Gerry Adams to be released without charge this evening

GERRY ADAMS IS to be released this evening without charge, TheJournal.ie has learned.

A file will be sent to the Public Prosecution Service.

It is understood he will be released at about 8pm and will speak to reporters.

The Louth TD is also expected to be back in the Dáil next week.

The Sinn Féin president has been in police custody in Antrim since last Wednesday, questioned about the abduction and murder of Jean McConville in 1972.


http://www.thejournal.ie/gerry-adams-released-1448322-May2014/

[mr blur]

1. Gerry Adams should be in jail;

he should have been in jail for years, with the other murderers, for helping to organize those terrorist bastards in the IRA when they were bombing our streets and pubs.

[intaglio]

4. Now get the proof

You know what allows juries to convict.

And, yes, I did live in London during the 1970s bombing campaign and, yes, I did have a bomb go off near me. and yes I did know people injured by bombs and killings, they were servicemen.

But remember if you want prosecutions of Sinn Fein you will have to also prosecute for all the extra-judicial deaths caused by the British forces. If you wish include the tortures committed by the IRA but remember that the Prods also tortured and so did the British forces.

Now let's consider in all the lives that Adams and McGuinnis saved by negotiating. Let's look at South Africa and the reconciliation commissions

Now stop thinking that revenge does anything except engender more violence.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Agreeing to stop having people murdered is not the same as saving lives!

As to moral equivalence: During the troubles,
Republican terrorists killed about 600 people, not one of them justifiably.
Unionist terrorists killed about 300 people (some with the complicity of UK forces), not one of them justifiably.
The UK forces killed about 100 people, most but by no means all of them criminals killed while resisting arrest.

There certainly were both unjustifiable killings of civilians, and outright murders, by members of the UK forces, as well as collusion with Unionist murder groups, and I think it's regrettable that so few people have ended up in jail for these, just as I think it's regrettable that so many Republican and Unionist murders were let out early or not pursued. But the number is often exaggerated - it's well into double figures, but well short of a tenth of the number of victims of the IRA (which is still far, far too many - when the proudest boast you can make for a police force is "murdered less than a tenth of the number of people a dedicated murder organisation did" then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong...)

But, sadly, that was necessary for peace - the politicians involved took the view that letting two murderers from different sides off cancelled out, rather than adding out.

[intaglio]

20. Negotiating in good faith to end the Troubles did save lives

I repeat - Revenge does nothing except cause more deaths

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. Which is why Trimble and Hume were awarded a Nobel peace prize.

But Adams and McGuinness could have ended most of the troubles at any time (not all - an end to Republican violence would have massively reduced Unionist violence compared to what actually happened, but by no means ended it overnight), just by agreeing to stop causing them.

[intaglio]

26. Adams and McGuinness had to work round the gangsters and hardliners

It may surprise you but the leadership of Sinn Fein was always open to dispute and if the terrible 2 had stepped wrong the killing would be going on today,

And You still have not acknowledged my main point, so I will print it larger in the hopes you will notice it:

[font size="6" color="0000FF"]Revenge does nothing except cause more deaths[/font]

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. Do you think that "revenge" is a good choice of words for a common-or-garden legal system?

I'm not for a minute suggesting that those guilty of murders in the Troubles should have been treated more harshly than any other murderers.

I *am* saying that it was regrettable (although probably necessary) that they were treated more leniently.

[intaglio]

29. Compare to the South African case, which I also mentioned

In this case continued pursuit of these men is revenge, now answer the point.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. Which point requires an answer?

If it's "other than more killings, what would punishing those convicted of murders in the troubles achieve" then the obvious answer is "some closure, or at least remedy of the insult that was added to their injury, for the victims".

It's also worth noting that recovery of bodies is a different thing to punishment.

[intaglio]

31. The one highlighted which you have studiously avoided

[font size="12" color="ff0000"]Revenge does nothing except cause more deaths[/font]

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. You mean the one I just answered, in the post you replied to accusing me of avoiding? N.T.

[RB TexLa]

5. And you don't think the terrorist proddy PSNI would have done that if they could?

Probably means something about the amount of evidence of the so called "crimes."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. What, you mean the one Adams and McGuinness have endorsed?

For your information, 30% of its officers are Catholic.

"Terrorist" can only have come from the recesses of your fevered imagination. "Terrorism" is what Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams have dedicated their lives to, not what the PSNI does.

That you choose the word "proddy" makes your bigotry shamefully obvious.

[Recursion]

36. PSNI didn't need to be terrorists when they had the UDA

That was kind of the whole point, right?

[ucrdem]

2. Great. Thanks!

Can you put this in LBN? It's definitely new news, and not an update to last week's arrest thread. Also it sets the record straight which never seems to happen in these matters. Here's the link I was about to post myself:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-27278039

In any case thanks for the news!
.................

ETA: I posted the BBC link as it's getting close to the 12-hour deadline

[CountAllVotes]

3. Stay well President Gerry Adams

As President of Sinn Féin, Ireland needs you.



Released from police custody without charge indeed!

& recommend.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Or, better, die slowly and painfully.

So soon we forget that it was Hume and Trimble who made the running in the peace process, not Adams and Paisley...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. What the PSNI was up to was trying to find one of the IRA's victims' bodies.

Adams probably, but not certainly, ordered her murder himself, and almost certainly knows who did and where it is if not.

Sadly and shamefully, he refused to tell them where it is.

He is a bloody-handed murdering piece of shit. The number of Americans who defend him, but would be outraged by similar support for Osama bin Laden, is laughable and tragic.

[ucrdem]

9. Bloody-handed murderers aren't generally released without charges.

If they had anything at all on Adams they'd have nailed him years ago. Do you think police have never framed an inconvenient person with a crime he didn't commit? In Northern Ireland no less?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. ...Are you serious?

You seriously think the PSNI would frame Gerry Adams? Are you really that detached from the political reality of NI today? I'm frankly amazed they even had the guts to bring him in for questioning.

As to murderers walking free, that was a large part of the peace process. Sadly, the politicians involved have taken the view that a Republican murderer and a Unionist murderer both walking free cancels out, rather than adding up to two murderers walking.

Which was, probably, the right decision, because it's brought about a tentative peace, and probably the only way to persuade men like Adams and McGuinness* to stop having people murdered was to let them into government.


*Note that I'm not naming any Unionists here. That's not because I think that the (large number of) Unionist murders were any less contemptible, but because as far as I can tell the Unionists tend to have had slightly more separation between the terrorists and their political defenders, whereas Sinn Fein and the IRA never made more than a token pretense of having separate leadership. Ian Paisley certainly encouraged and defended murders, but I suspect he never actually took part in ordering, planning or carrying out any, whereas McGuinness (a former IRA "quartermaster&quot certainly and Adams almost certainly did.

[ucrdem]

12. If that was "part of the process" they wouldn't still be trying to frame him.

Would they? As far as guts they'll do whatever they can get away with when it's most convenient, meaning when US pols are sufficiently distracted by other crises. I've seen Belfast at its worst and I marvel at the alternate reality some partisans inhabit.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Correct, ergo they are not trying to frame him.

There is credible evidence (although not proof beyond reasonable doubt, yet) that Adams was involved in McConvilles death.

Following up on that to try to find her body is not trying to frame him.

[ucrdem]

14. They tried and they failed.

They'll probably keep trying.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. Do you have a single scrap of evidence?

Given that we know that there is credible evidence of Adams' involvement of McConville's murder, do you have a single scrap of evidence that the PSNI are doing anything other than legitimately pursuing that?

In case it's not obvious, that's a rhetorical question; the answer is "no, you don't".

[ucrdem]

16. Ahem, we're discussing it. He was arrested. Then released without charges.

They tried to make his alleged "connection" to the murder (i.e., the murder) stick. They could not.

This is getting rillly silly so carry on without me.

[RB TexLa]

17. We should have let Germany take your island. Cause you people would have never

become terrorists against their rule, right.

[RB TexLa]

19. I'm saying in the 1940's we should have done nothing for you people.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. You are, of course, at least 85 years old and a war veteran? N.T.

[RB TexLa]

22. No, just saying it was what your island deserved.

[Iggo]

24. "You people."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. It does make me wonder if (s)he knows I'm Jewish...

I suspect that what I'm dealing with is just pig-ignorance and anti-British bigotry, not anti-semitism, but I do wonder.

[RB TexLa]

28. I don't care. And I have the same views of britian and it's history as many people in the world do

but hey they must all just be "pigs ignorant"

You are the one on here wanting your pound of flesh served up.

[LeftishBrit]

33. Would you have been perfectly happy with Hitler taking over Europe?

It wasn't just Britain that was at stake, you know!

[RB TexLa]

34. We could have saved the rest of Europe

[H2O Man]

35. Recommended.

I like, and respect, Gerry Adams. He has fought the Good Fight.

[riderinthestorm]

37. This was nothing more than a shameful political maneuver

It comes in the middle of a fragile peace and is designed to weaken Sinn Fein for the elections. It also emboldens the extremists at the worst possible time.

Glad they released him but of course they held him the maximum possible time allowed to really make their point. Its also badly damaged the truth and reconciliation project that was supposed to guarantee participants the ability to tell their stories without prosecution or persecution. Sucks.