The McConville Assumption

I can't prove that Jean McConville was an informer, and I can't prove that she wasn't. But it's now an article of faith that she couldn't have been, and that it's absurd to think a widowed mother living a modest life with her ten children could possibly have ever served as an informer in the service of British authorities in Northern Ireland: What could a person like that ever have offered to the sophisticated enterprise of military intelligence?

The American journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, who has written a new book about McConville's kidnapping and murder by the Provisional IRA, echoed this line in a recent interview with the Irish Times:

He does not take a position on the allegation that the reason she was murdered was because she was informing for the British army – a claim fiercely resented and rejected by the McConvilles, and also formally rejected by former Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan – although he reasonably queries what a vulnerable, stressed, 38-year-old widowed mother of a large brood of children could usefully do for the army.

But here's a passage from an excerpt taken from Keefe's book, describing McConville's kidnapping (which took place in her home, in front of her children):

A couple of the men were not wearing masks, and Michael McConville realised, to his horror, that the people taking his mother were not strangers. They were neighbours.

To acknowledge that Jean McConville lived in a place where her neighbors were IRA members is to acknowledge that she could have been a useful informer. A widowed mother, not leaving for work or frequent travel, at home constantly in what was effectively an IRA barracks, was in a position to report on the movements and meetings of her neighbors. 

Divis Flats was a center of IRA activity, a battleground and a deadly place for British soldiers. It was so important to the British Army to have eyes on Divis Flats that they built an observation post there – which would have allowed them much the same kind of information that McConville would have had from her own apartment. Who's coming, who's going, who's armed, what apartments do armed men enter, who's running into Divis Flats ahead of pursuing soldiers?

Troops in a fixed observation post can't see everything at all times; supplemental intelligence, on plain questions about the movements and identities of neighbors who serve in a paramilitary organization, would have been valuable to the British soldiers patrolling the area. Imagine IRA commanders having someone in British army barracks who called and reported the movement of troops. This is valuable information, easily reported, and not requiring sophisticated knowledge of military operations.

It's reasonable to describe the claim that McConville was an informer as a disputed claim, or an unproven claim. It's reasonable to notice the pain that the claim causes her children. It's silly to pretend that it's inconceivable, or that she could have offered no value of any kind to the British military in Belfast. It's perfectly clear that it would have been quite valuable to the British to have extra eyes inside Divis Flats, and it's perfectly clear that McConville could have been in a position to provide those eyes.

The British government could settle the matter by fully opening the archives, releasing every document relating to military intelligence and army patrols in Belfast in 1972. A similar point might be made regarding the commander in the Provisional IRA who ordered that McConville be taken, killed, and disappeared. The reality of the McConville killing is that the people who have the best evidence haven't shared it. Until they do – unless they do, and it seems unlikely that either British Army or former Provisional IRA leaders ever will – McConville's role as an alleged informer cannot be treated as an absurd proposition. As her children have said, she was taken by a paramilitary squad that included their neighbors. That's why she could have been an informer. The claim that she was is an open question.

Farcical High Court Decision Backs PSNI Farce

I am now convinced that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is an elaborate prank, a kind of brilliantly large-scale Candid Camera -- and the courts are totally on on the joke.

Let's start with some background. Feel free to skip to the heading WOODSHOP FELONY below if you've been following the Belfast Project subpoenas closely (you poor bastard) and don't need to go through the whole farce again.

In 2011, investigating a 1972 murder that they had ignored for thirty-nine years, the Police Service of Northern Ireland went shopping for unearned confessions in a historical archive in the United States. The subpoenas served on Boston College were, the claim went, desperately necessary, investigative tools scratching away the truth behind the most serious of crimes: the kidnapping, murder, and secret burial of a widowed mother of ten children, Jean McConville, killed by the Provisional IRA as a suspected informer in the employ of the British army in Belfast. 

Locked away in a university library, the Belfast Project tapes supposedly held the answers; consisting of frank oral history interviews with former members of paramilitary organizations, they would allow the authorities to bring a set of killers to justice. The headlines said so, plainly and uncritically. "Tapes Hold N. Ireland Murder Secrets," CNN reported. It was all pretty simple: Get the tapes, press the "play" button, make some arrests.

The police got the tapes they sought, but it doesn't appear that the police got their Northern Ireland murder secrets. More than seven years later, no one has ever been brought to trial over McConville's murder, or on any other crime supposedly exposed by the tapes. One elderly man, allegedly a former Provisional IRA member of high rank, was charged more than four years ago with crimes related to the killing, but his case has become the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce of the criminal courts -- forever subject to status conferences, forever unresolved. 

Following another, later subpoena, another set of charges were brought against another elderly man alleged to have once been a ranking member of a Loyalist paramilitary organization. Those charges have also gone Full Kafka, forever wandering the hallways of the courts of Northern Ireland and rattling their chains. One day the sun will implode, our solar system will vanish into a black hole, and the charges brought on the basis of the Belfast Project tapes will finally meet their resolution. 

WOODSHOP FELONY

But now the farce of the Belfast Project tapes has become something else altogether, the word for which probably hasn't been coined, yet. We'll need a neologism that combines the ideas of raw sewage, things of microscopic importance, and pure farce. (This would be easier if we all spoke German.)

In 2014, circling back to a source that had brought them no form of success in court at all, law enforcement authorities in Northern Ireland asked the U.S. Department of Justice to promulgate a new Belfast Project subpoena. This time, the PSNI was seeking the recorded interviews archived at Boston College in which a Belfast Project researcher, Anthony McIntyre (a former Long Kesh prisoner who has a PhD in history), is said to have discussed his own role in the Provisional IRA.

Federal authorities in Boston got McIntyre's interview materials, and the DOJ sent them off to Belfast. But McIntyre went to court to stop the police from reading the transcripts or listening to the tapes. This week, the High Court in Belfast issued a decision in McIntyre's legal challenge, which they heard almost a year ago. 

The decision is, God help us all, comic opera. It makes the farcical nature of the whole production abundantly clear, while attempting to manage the discussion within the boundaries of language that declares that this is terribly serious judicial business. I have a draft copy, not yet signed by the court, and the court has posted a summary of the decision here (link opens to PDF file). I'll stick to discussing the publicly available summary until the whole decision becomes public.

Now, remember that this all began, seven years ago, with a great deal of somber tut-tutting about the seriousness of the Belfast Project subpoenas, and the urgent work of the PSNI as it raced down the trail after some murderers. So take a look at the summary posted by the court, which describes the matters now being investigated by the PSNI with regard to Anthony McIntyre:

On 3 September 2014 the PSNI requested that the Public Prosecution Service (“PPS”) issue an International Letter of Request (“ILOR”) in respect of a criminal investigation it was carrying out into the following matters: 

[....]

The detection in 1978 in the applicant's possession of an imitation firearm while in custody in circumstances suggesting that he may be planning an escape from custody. The applicant states that this is a reference to an incomplete wooden gun in two parts which was found in a search cubicle in prison reception. He was questioned at the time of its discovery but not charged with any offence.

Note that this sentence about events in the 1970s begins with "the detection," at the time, of the thing being discussed. So in 1978, prison officials caught Anthony McIntyre with some pieces of wood, which they suspected, probably for good reason, that he was planning to turn into a fake gun so he could bluff his way out of prison. They questioned him about it but decided not to charge him with a crime. Thirty-six years later, the PSNI decided to conduct an investigation to determine if Anthony McIntyre had possessed some pieces of wood that could be turned into a fake gun for use in an attempt at a prison escape, and they went through the complex and difficult process of obtaining international legal assistance to subpoena interview materials archived in another country. 

The reason the PSNI suspected that Anthony McIntyre had once possessed wooden materials that could be used to make a fake gun was that, nearly four decades ago, prison officials in Northern Ireland caught Anthony McIntyre in possession of wooden materials that could be used to make a fake gun.

We suspect this man of Crime X because forty years ago he was caught committing it, so now we need to find out if he committed the crime that we know about because we know he was caught committing it.

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, ladies and gentlemen.

The PSNI used the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States in an attempt to find out if Anthony McIntyre hid some wood in his socks forty years ago, a thing they already knew he did.

But let's keep going, and take a look at the other things the PSNI supposedly set out to investigate by digging into McIntyre's Belfast Project tapes. Like this:

"Membership of an illegal organisation."

Goodness yes: Let's use international legal assistance to conduct an investigation to find out if Anthony McIntyre was ever a member of the Provisional IRA, more than forty years after the time he was actually convicted on that charge. McIntyre's own website, by the way, has a review of his book on Irish republicanism, which describes McIntyre as "a historian, a former member of the IRA and a onetime party activist with extensive contacts in the organisation." It took me five seconds on Google to come up with that one -- but I don't have the option of asking the Department of Justice to issue subpoenas on my behalf, so I was forced to fall back on other means.

Finally, the PSNI suspects that McIntyre carried out a bombing, with a few problems:

"A bomb attack on a house at Rugby Avenue on 6 February 1976. The PSNI claimed to have received information on that date the applicant was involved in the bomb attack. The applicant, however, maintains that he was in fact the target of the attack and that in any event if the attack was on the date alleged he was in police custody throughout that day."

More about the Rugby Avenue bomb later, when the full decision is available, but alleging in an international letter of assistance that McIntyre bombed somebody's house on a day when he was in police custody is an interesting choice.

Analyzing the international letter of assistance -- the letter the PSNI asked Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service to prepare in order to ask American law enforcement officials for help -- the High Court acknowledges in its decision that the police and prosecutors made a hash of the whole thing. From the summary released by the court, and take a moment to read this carefully:

"There were a number of errors in the ILOR including reference to the incorrect date of birth of the applicant, the incorrect section of legislation in respect of an offence, an assertion that the applicant had been convicted of armed robbery in 1975 and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of three years when in fact there was no evidence to support that assertion and an incorrect date of Judicial conviction for the offence of membership of a proscribed organisation."

So the police set out to investigate whether Anthony McIntyre once possessed some wood that they suspect he possessed because they know he possessed it, and also set out to learn if a convicted IRA member had ever been in the IRA, and also set out to determine if he blew up somebody's house on a date when he was locked up in the police station, and when they wrote the letter outlining their investigation, they got most of the supporting facts totally wrong.

These two conclusions come one after the other in the summary of the decision posted on the court website:

• The errors in the ILOR were due to a distinct and surprising lack of care on the part of the PSNI and the PPS;  

• The errors in the ILOR were not indicative of bad faith.

Got that? They fucked up everything they touched, which we're pretty sure proves that they were trying to be careful and do a good job.

More to come.

Shocking Interview With a U.S. Intel Source

This week, Buzzfeed published explosive but unverified intel documents of unclear origin, revealing a claim that President-Elect Donald Trump had flown to Moscow, checked into a hotel room recently frequented by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and deliberately defiled the sanctified space with large quantities of hooker urine.

Pursuing those remarkable claims, I have just managed to interview a senior U.S. intelligence official – who reveals, on condition of anonymity, that American officials have received a number of other astonishing tips regarding President-Elect Trump's dangerous sexual practices. In the interest of transparency, I present the wholly unverified statements of this senior official verbatim, leaving it for readers to determine their veracity:

First incident: Our intel sources say Mr. Trump was there to deliver a pizza, but then the sorority didn't have enough cash to pay for it. For reasons that remain unclear, a funky bass line began to play. Then the sorority chicks began to undress, revealing bosoms of exceptional proportions, and Mr. Trump is said to have made a play on words that involved the delivery of a 'sausage' pizza, while licking his lips in a suggestive manner and boldly tossing his mullet from side to side. Perverse and gymnastically exceptional sexual acts did then occur.

Second incident: A highly placed foreign government official tells us that a car driven by three ravishing blondes in cheerleader outfits broke down on the side of a remote highway. Though the day was exceptionally hot and sunny, the ladies in question were able to cool their bodies by pouring bottles of chilled water onto their shirts. Mr. Trump was driving a tow truck, and responded to the scene to assist. However, upon seeing the wet cheerleader shirts in question, he became aroused. Our sources indicate that Mr. Trump then stated that he would 'pull out his gear and get you ladies all jacked up to ride,' prompting spontaneous squeals of apparent delight. He then lowered a mattress to the ground, adjacent to the highway. Once again, numerous sexual acts took place.

Third incident: While working as a junior college volleyball referee, Mr. Trump called a foul on a pair of young players in extremely small shorts. Having identified a transgression against 'league rules,' our sources indicate, Mr. Trump explained to the players that the penalty for the offense in question was 'a hot and nasty spanking to show you what I do to bad girls like you.' The younger of the players objected, pulling on her pigtails and tucking a fingertip into the corner of her mouth. Substantial HUMINT indicates that the player stated, 'But sir, we're barely legal college girls.' The subsequent sexual acts are said by several foreign intelligence agencies to have involved baby oil, a small leather paddle, and a sturdy nylon swing.

As experienced professionals, we assess this intel to be highly credible.

Clearly, these are allegations of the highest merit, raising deep concerns. It appears that the Trump presidency will be finished before it even begins.

Exclusive: Major New Intel Report on Donald Trump's Russian Ties

Shortly after Buzzfeed's publication of an explosive intel dossier on Donald Trump, I received this shocking document directly from a highly-placed source in the intel community:

Rushen Intelijense by chrisabray on Scribd

Jean McConville, Ivor Bell, and the Denouement that Never Comes

There's nothing there. It's a shadow of a shadow of a shadow.

Prosecutors in Belfast have now presented their case against Ivor Bell, in a preliminary inquiry meant to show that their evidence is strong enough to be advanced to trial. The Public Prosecution Service alleges that Bell aided and abetted in the 1972 murder of the Belfast widow and mother Jean McConville, joining others in the solicitation of murder.

Don't take my word for what I'm about to say: Take a few minutes to review some of the news stories about the preliminary inquiry. Here's a story from the Belfast Telegraph. Here's another story from the same newspaper. Here's a story from the BBC. Here's a story from the Times of London. (Remarkably, I can't find any stories about the preliminary inquiry from the Irish Times.)

The preliminary inquiry lasted two days, and the testimony covered in news stories all focused on the Boston College tapes. Notice what testimony doesn't appear in the news stories, and what kind of facts were apparently absent from the courtroom:

What are the names of the people Ivor Bell allegedly aided and abetted?

Specifically, what are the criminal events, in sequence, in which Bell allegedly participated?

What is the name of the person who is alleged to have actually ordered the kidnapping, murder, and disappearance of Jean McConville?

Other than Ivor Bell, what are the names of the Provisional IRA leaders who allegedly discussed the subject of McConville's murder and disappearance? There was a meeting: Who was there?

Previous accounts of McConville's kidnapping from her home in Divis Flats suggest that about a dozen members of the Provisional IRA participated in the abduction. What were their names?

McConville was buried on a beach in the Republic of Ireland. What are the names of the people who dug her grave?

Who shot Jean McConville? 

Quite simply, unless it happened but the reporters in the courtroom completely missed it, prosecutors have outlined no crime at all. They have laid out no charges, advanced no facts, and described no events. They have not said who did the things that Ivor Bell is alleged to have assisted with; indeed, they have not said in any particular detail what actions he aided. They have no theory of the case they wish to advance in court, can publicly offer no timeline, and have named no names but one. They do not fully describe a plot and its procedure, placing Bell inside well-explained events in his particular context. They do not appear with witnesses who can testify firsthand about what they saw, heard, and did as McConville was carried from her home, killed and buried.

All they have – five years later – is the tapes. Which they present with a shrug, and some general testimony from a librarian about the project to record them.

Who ordered the murder of Jean McConville, and who shot her? It wasn't Ivor Bell. To prosecute him for aiding and abetting without clearly and convincingly answering those two questions in an open courtroom is a sham and an embarrassment.

More than five years after the first subpoenas arrived at Boston College, we still have not seen the police or prosecutors in Northern Ireland venture a public answer to the most obvious questions of all.

This is a sideshow, staged by circus clowns who stand over the grave of a murdered woman.

A Long Game of Blindfolded Darts

I've been arguing for years that the Belfast Project subpoenas aren't an example of a police investigation, but rather offer proof that police in Northern Ireland are engaged in a theatrical performance and refusing to perform real detective work. Events in Belfast courts this week prove the point.

First, in a hearing regarding an American subpoena requested by the PSNI for Belfast Project interviews conducted with Anthony McIntyre, lawyers for McIntyre argued that the International Letter of Request (ILOR) sent by the British government to the U.S. government was "replete with errors, and that’s putting it mildly.” Among the errors alleged by McIntyre's lawyers were claims made in the ILOR that McIntyre had previously been convicted for offenses for which he had actually been acquitted or never charged.

In response, lawyers for the police and the prosecution service made no argument at all, neither conceding nor rejecting the claim; instead, they told the judges hearing the case that they would have to look into it. "Counsel for the respondents were unable to confirm the claim, insisting archives would have to be checked," the Irish News reported (emphasis added). Here's what comes next in that newspaper story:

Lord Justice Weatherup, sitting with Lord Justice Weir, described the situation as unsatisfactory.

"It's incredible; you have sent a letter to America... and you don't know whether it was in respect of an offence for which he's already been acquitted," he said.

So the Police Service of Northern Ireland initiated a request for the U.S. Department of Justice to subpoena an academic archive in Boston, and now -- now, after making an international request for legal assistance in a supposed criminal investigation -- have begun to look into the factual background their own case. Oh, yeah, man, we'll go, like, check the archives and stuff.

The laziness, shoddiness, indifference to professional standards, and general halfassedness scream across an ocean at the American prosecutors who are playing along with this nonsense. These worthless idiots sent off an ILOR, then started to think about what they were up to. (A pattern emerges, by the way.) I'm not in Belfast to check, but I assume the PSNI's detectives drool on themselves and shit their pants.

Meanwhile, in another hearing over a different set of Belfast Project interviews, a different judge heard a legal challenge to the evidence obtained in the case of Ivor Bell, who is accused of aiding and abetting in the 1972 murder of Jean McConville. The federal appeals court in Boston, narrowing the decision of a district court judge, ordered that only two interviews with the interview subject known as "Z" -- who is alleged, but not proven, to be Bell -- be handed over to the PSNI. In fact, Bell's lawyers claim, authorities in Belfast are attempting to go to court with several more of the Belfast Project's "Z" interviews, evidence obtained far beyond the scope of the American court order.

Of course, Bell was charged in early 2014; now, two and a half years later, prosecutors in Belfast can't even get their evidence into the courtroom for a preliminary inquiry, much less a trial.

One week, two shambles.

Meanwhile, note the incredible statement at the conclusion of the Irish News story on the McIntyre hearing, linked above: A lawyer for the PSNI's chief constable "suggested PSNI officers who will be in Boston on Saturday to collect other materials could also bring back the McIntyre recordings and deposit them, still sealed, with the court.

The PSNI has gone back to Boston, in at least one other international request for a subpoena that has not yet been disclosed. They keep churning up garbage with their shoddy trips to Boston, and they keep going back to Boston.

Will anyone ever restrain these idiots? They're embarrassing themselves, damaging the legitimacy of Northern Ireland's political institutions, wasting the DOJ's time, angering Belfast judges, and making a clown show of the rule of law. And the U.S. government keeps shrugging and typing up the subpoenas.

American Sociological Association Statement on the New Belfast Project Subpoena

The president, past president, and president-elect of the American Sociological Association have signed a public letter denouncing the outrageous new federal subpoena of Belfast Project interviews that were conducted with Dr. Anthony McIntyre:

ASA Letter on BC Subpoenas by chrisabray

What the Anthony McIntyre Subpoena is Not

British and Irish newspapers have begun to cover the latest subpoena served on Boston College for Belfast Project materials, and some are getting big parts of the story wrong. Most egregiously, David Lawler writes in the Telegraph that the newly subpoenaed materials "could shed light on the infamous abduction of Jean McConville in 1972."

Doubling down, Lawler's story later ascribes this view to the Police Service of Northern Ireland: "The PSNI believes McIntryre's interviews with former IRA members could indicate what role, if any, Gerry Adams had in the kidnap and murder of McConville."

Not true. Not close to true.

Start with the subpoena itself, which directly declares the categories of crime that are supposedly under investigation:

McIntyre Subpoena by chrisabray

The subpoena sent to Boston College tells us that police are investigating "alleged violations of the laws of the United Kingdom, namely, attempted murder, possession of explosives with intent to endanger life, possession of an imitation firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence, and membership of a proscribed organization."

Notice the absence from that list of the crimes of kidnapping and murder, the two things that were done to Jean McConville.

But that's only one of the reasons we know this new subpoena isn't about Jean McConville. Recall that Boston College received two sets of subpoenas back in 2011: A first set for particular interviews undertaken with Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes, and a second (and later) set requesting all interviews that described the McConville matter.

Burns Librarian Robert O'Neill, the university official responsible for archiving the Belfast Project, told the federal district court that he was unfamiliar with the collection he had spent years receiving and cataloging. That claim led Judge William Young to perform a complete in camera review of every IRA interview in the collection, personally determining which interview materials were germane to a request for evidence in the McConville case. Young ordered all of those materials sent to the PSNI.

Now: The PSNI has returned to Boston, through the agency of the US Attorney's Office, to seek Anthony McIntyre's interviews, so...

1.) The PSNI doesn't already have McIntyre's interviews, but

2.) Four years ago, every Belfast Project interview with material about the McConville murder was sent to the PSNI.

Therefore, McIntyre's interviews were not among those that contained material about the McConville killing. Because they would already be in Belfast, lodged with the police, if they did.

Anthony McIntyre's interviews don't contain information about the McConville killing, and the new subpoena doesn't mention kidnapping or murder. It's not at all correct to link this new subpoena for McIntyre's interviews to McConville. Stop doing it.

Keystone Kops III: Stumbling Back to Boston

Incredibly, Boston College has been served with a new Belfast Project subpoena, following a request from the British government to American authorities under the terms of the US-UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.

The latest demand for archived materials seeks the interviews that were conducted with a primary researcher on the project, Dr. Anthony McIntyre. A Queen's University history PhD, McIntyre is himself a former member of the Provisional IRA, once imprisoned by the British government for 18 years. McIntyre interviewed former IRA members for the Belfast Project, and was also interviewed himself by an as-yet-unidentified guest researcher.

The absurdity of the new subpoena would be hard to exaggerate. Dated April 21, and signed by First Assistant United States Attorney John McNeil, the subpoena seeks "evidence regarding alleged violations of the laws of the United Kingdom," including "membership of a proscribed organization."

This isn't a joke: In 2016, the British and U.S. governments are working together to try to figure out if Anthony McIntyre was ever a member of the IRA.

It's like the FBI suddenly deciding to assemble a major case squad to see if Huey Newton ever had anything to do with that whole Black Panther thing. Was Nathanael Greene somehow involved in the American Revolution? An urgent government investigation is underway!

(Personal aside to Police Service of Northern Ireland: Try looking here. If that's too much reading, this confidential law enforcement source might also help.)

The new subpoena follows several earlier waves of equally ridiculous subpoenas, which began in 2011 and first sought information on the long-ignored 1972 kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville. Several years after receiving subpoenaed interviews that discussed the McConville killing, authorities in Belfast have charged precisely no one with those crimes – and the available evidence strongly suggests that they never will.

The Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland did charge a single person, Ivor Bell, with aiding and abetting in the McConville murder, but police and prosecutors have never said who Bell was supposed to have aided and abetted; they have brought charges for helping with a murder, but they have not brought charges for the murder itself. Even that weak and tangential case is evaporating in painful stages: Bell was charged in March of 2014, but -- more than two years later -- has yet to receive so much as a preliminary inquiry, much less a trial. Bell's lawyers now seek to have the charges thrown out of court, an outcome that seems increasingly likely.

More recently, law enforcement officials in Belfast used the MLAT process to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to obtain the Belfast Project interviews of former Loyalist paramilitary commander Winston Rea.  Police in Belfast got the Rea tapes nearly a year ago. The tapes have not been spoken of since, and no charges have been filed.

And so Northern Ireland's Keystone Kops return to the same dry well that has served them so well in the past, demanding tapes that may reveal Anthony McIntyre's involvement in the IRA.

I keep trying to decide if this is a tragedy or a farce. It may be both. One thing that it certainly isn't: A legitimate police investigation.

Message from a Dogged Investigator

I sent an email message to Detective Inspector Neil McGuinness of the PSNI, asking him for comment on his recent letter to Ed Moloney (that he didn't send to Ed Moloney, because he doesn't know how to find him). I got this remarkable message in response:

Mr Bray,

The investigation into the abduction and murder of Jean McConville is on-going. Can you confirm that Mr Maloney has received my request that he contact me in the matter I referred to in the letter you have received? To date I have not received any reply from Mr Maloney.

Regards,

Neil McGuinness
Detective Inspector

So there it is: In August of 2015, the PSNI's detectives are waiting for witnesses to get in touch with them about a 1972 murder. And they haven't quite figured out yet how to spell the names of the people they consider witnesses.

The swift and steady hand of justice, ladies and gentlemen.

Charge First, Then Begin to Investigate

Below is an absolutely astounding letter from a Police Service of Northern Ireland detective to the Irish journalist and former Belfast Project director Ed Moloney. The letter is cut off at the top. This is the way it was sent to me, scanned it into digital form this way by the person who has the letter -- not Ed Moloney, who the crack detectives of the PSNI can't find.

This letter is amazing in many, many ways, but start with the date: August 7, 2015.

In the summer of 2015, the PSNI is beginning to ask people to cooperate as witnesses in matters relating to the 1972 murder of Jean McConville. That's well over a year after prosecutors in Northern Ireland filed aiding and abetting charges over McConville's murder against Ivor Bell, who is allegedly a former senior figure in the Provisional IRA. And it's well over a year since the PSNI arrested Gerry Adams and questioned him regarding McConville's murder.

This is how law enforcement officials in Northern Ireland are pursuing justice in the murder of Jean McConville: They filed charges last year, and they're trying to find some witnesses this year. I'm embarrassed for them.

Here's the letter:

PSNI Letter to Ed Moloney by chrisabray

Kick the Can, Continued

A representative of the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland, speaking to the press earlier this month about the possible case against Gerry Adams over the murder of Jean McConville, with emphasis added: “It is anticipated that the processes involved in taking this decision will be concluded before the end of July.”

Most PSNI and PPS statements on the Jean McConville matter are eventually proven to be false.

Turd Passing

Endless. Shameless.

Ivor Bell, arrested and charged in March of 2014 for allegedly aiding and abetting in the 1972 murder of the Belfast widow Jean McConville, has bounced off the surface of the justice system ever since. After a long series of inconclusive court appearances in which prosecutors asked for more time to think about the charges, a Belfast judge finally gave the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland an ultimatum this year: Make a decision or give it up. So we had many versions of this news story in early June of this year, after the PPS told the court they had definitely for sure decided to proceed:

"Ivor Bell to be prosecuted over Jean McConville murder."

That decision, the Irish Times wrote, "has ended mounting uncertainty over the case."

It surely hasn't. After the June 4 "decision," Bell was ordered to return to court on July 16 so the judge and the lawyers on both sides could figure out a date to begin a preliminary inquiry in the case. Today is July 21. You wouldn't know it from the newspapers in Ireland or the UK, but Bell did return to court on July 16 -- where no date was set for a preliminary inquiry. Instead, the PPS asked for another delay in the case.

The prosecutor assigned to prosecute Bell, they explained, is on maternity leave. And the other prosecutor assigned to the case in her absence hasn't had time to read the case files, yet.

For about the fifty thousandth time, I'll say that you can really feel the urgency, here. The criminal justice system in Northern Ireland will not rest until Jean McConville's killers are brought to justi- okay, wait, another prosecutor just went to the bathroom. Try again in October, your honor? Or we could, I don't know, pencil something in for 2020? That year is looking pretty solid for us.

In theory, the case is back in court in two weeks. Now taking bets on how many times the PPS can say they aren't ready before a judge is willing to mercifully put their case out of its misery. The dog continues to eat our homework, your honor.

I asked the PPS press office for comment, and will update if they respond. But they may need some extra time to think about it, for sure.

The PSNI's Urgent Murder Investigation, Continued

Here's an an actual news headline from early July, 2013: "Boston College tapes: PSNI detectives get secret Dolours Price transcripts."

Two years ago, as part of their urgent investigation into the 1972 kidnapping and murder of the Belfast widow Jean McConville, police in Northern Ireland took possession of a set of taped interviews subpoenaed from the archives at Boston College.

Then, in March of last year, Belfast resident Ivor Bell was charged with aiding and abetting in McConville's disappearance. Those charges, not yet scheduled for trial or brought to court for a preliminary hearing, are now fifteen months old – staler than the wedding cake on Miss Havisham's banquet table.

One of the many problems with the possibility that Bell will be successfully prosecuted is a reality of the Boston College tapes that I reported on a long time ago: Boston College doesn't have an identity key, or many of the collection contracts, that would be needed to connect interviewees with their anonymously labeled interviews.

In theory, at least, one of the ways to successfully prosecute Bell would be to connect the tapes to the interviewees. One of the clearest ways to do that – again, in theory – would be to ask the interviewers to identify the interviewees. For tapes with former members of the Provisional IRA, the organization that took McConville from her home and killed her, the interviews were conducted by the former Provisional IRA prisoner and history PhD Anthony McIntyre. That would be the person you would want to question, if you were the police and you hoped to successfully prosecute former members of Irish republican paramilitary organizations.

So the police have now done just that. Anthony McIntyre lives in the Republic of Ireland, out of the direct reach of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, so a pair of Garda detectives appeared at his front door today and attempted to question him on behalf of their colleagues in the north. McIntyre's account is that he politely declined to offer them any answers, and they went away quickly and with equal politeness. And why not? It's not like anything much is at stake, at this point.

Two years after the PSNI took possession of the Boston College tapes, the police have made a desultory attempt to gesture at validating them. In 2015, they tried to ask some questions about the tapes they got in 2013. So they could solve the 1972 murder that they began to investigate in 2011. For the sake of kindness, let us assume that they just take plenty of naps.

We're having an annual development in the McConville murder, now. By 2032, give or take a decade, we could easily have a denouement of some kind.

Politics by Other Means

Here's a transcript of Sunday's 60 Minutes report on Gerry Adams and the murder of Jean McConville. The tell is at the start of the second paragraph, right below the picture: "Recently, old wounds split open when a history project by Boston College uncovered accusations of murder against the man who could be Ireland's next prime minster."

That's the point: The fear that Gerry Adams will be Ireland's next prime minister. It has been nearly a year since Adams was released from police custody, without charges, after being questioned over his role in McConville's death. Today he faces a stale investigation built on a foundation of hearsay from dead people, with a sprinkling of anonymous interviews on tape. Perhaps he'll still be stunt-charged for a while, ahead of the next elections in Ireland, before the charges are allowed to wither up and blow away in court but linger in public memory. In the end, Adams is as likely to go to prison over the murder of Jean McConville as I am.

And so we're left only with the actual point of the whole assault on the archives: 1.) A history project by Boston College 2.) ties a murder to the man who could Ireland's next prime minister.

Four years after the first subpoenas were served in Boston, we have no trial -- but lots of media coverage. As predicted, this is Irish politics, conducted by a police agency in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Department of Justice. This is not why societies have police.

Shameful Prosecutorial Malfeasance In Belfast

The Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland has broken its own rules, and embarrassed itself in the process.

Ivor Bell was charged with IRA membership, and aiding and abetting in the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, over a year ago. He has returned to court several times since then, and in every instance, the Public Prosecution Service has asked for more time to think about the matter.

Two weeks ago, Bell returned to court – so that prosecutors could ask for two more weeks to think about the case.

This week, with that two week delay having passed, Bell returned to court again – so that prosecutors could yet again ask for another month to think about the case. Not that they promised a decision in another month, natch.

The news reports on this week's hearing say this: "A prosecutor said a meeting with senior counsel was due to take place on April 13 to discuss a 'very lengthy' recommendation from the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) on whether to proceed with the legal action."

More than a year after the PPS brought charges against Bell, they are preparing to have a discussion about "whether to proceed with the legal action."

The PPS has posted its own "Code for Prosecutors" online. This is what it says on pg. 9: "Where there are substantial concerns as to the credibility of essential evidence, criminal proceedings may not be proper as the evidential test may not be capable of being met."

In the case of the supposed evidence against Bell, a set of audio tapes from Boston College involving an anonymous interview subject, the PPS told a Belfast court that it would begin looking for a voice expert who could help them prove that the tapes contain interviews with Bell himself. To be specific, they told the court this important fact seven months after they brought the charges against Bell.

So they threw some shit at a wall, and are hoping – thirteen months later – that they can find a way to make it stick.

The decision to bring charges against Ivor Bell on unreliable evidence was unethical, irresponsible, and unprofessional. At some point, the PPS has to be forced to stop kicking that can down the road. They filed charges without knowing they could prove them. It's time to face that shameful failure.

Happy Birthday to the Charges Against Ivor Bell

On March 18, 2014, the 78 year-old Ivor Bell was charged with having been a member of the Provisional IRA, and with aiding and abetting in the 1972 kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville. Today, March 19, 2015 -- a year and a day later, and 43 years after the crime -- Bell briefly returned to court in Belfast so prosecutors could ask for more time to think about his case.

No hurry, though.

Bell remains the only person charged with a crime as a result of the Belfast Project subpoenas served on Boston College. No one has been charged with actually kidnapping or killing McConville, the stated purpose of the subpoenas, and no suspects have been publicly named by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, though news reports have named Gerry Adams as the PIRA commander who allegedly ordered the killing.

A political effort continues to masquerade as a police investigation.

Highly Private Front-Page News

Below is a letter from an office of the U.S. Department of Justice, denying a FOIA request for copies of the MLAT commissioner's subpoenas served on Boston College last year for Belfast Project interviews with Winston Rea.

While the DOJ refuses to release these subpoenas, the underlying federal court case involving the appointment of an MLAT commissioner -- and the response of Boston College to the subpoenas -- remains hidden from public view. I searched Pacer today for the case (again), and it still doesn't appear.

Absurdly, while the DOJ and the federal courts treat the Winston Rea subpoena (or subpoenas) as a closely held secret, those subpoenas are regularly the topic of news stories in Ireland and the UK, and the subject of a much-discussed legal challenge in British courts. The subpoenas are not a secret -- but the federal government continues to pretend that they are. Note that the secrecy of MLAT commissioner's subpoenas is far from guaranteed, and we now have copies of the subpoenas served on Boston College in 2011. Here's an easy example.

It's long past time for the DOJ, and the courts, to make public the thing that we already know about.

DOJ Response to FOIA Request for Winston Rea Subpoenas by chrisabray

Wandering Interviews: A Story Mostly Left Untold

Be Very Afraid

(Updated below with PSNI, State Department, and court responses.)

Stuff happened.

Over the weekend, police detectives returning to Belfast with tapes of newly subpoenaed paramilitary interviews from Boston College found themselves unable to comply with a court order. The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland, considering a legal challenge from former loyalist paramilitary leader Winston Rea, had ordered the Police Service of Northern Ireland to take the interview material it had just obtained from federal law enforcement authorities in Boston and deliver it all directly to the U.S. Consulate in Belfast.

While the court considered Rea's appeal, then, the interviews -- supposedly his, though that has yet to be proved -- would remain in the hands of U.S. officials in an American diplomatic post, out of the easy reach of authorities in Northern Ireland. Since the substance of Rea's legal argument has to do with the very legality and appropriateness of the international process by which the PSNI obtained material from an American university, placing the subpoenaed material in a kind of makeshift United States made at least some amount of sense: The material would reach Northern Ireland, but would be taken out of the practical and immediate jurisdiction of its government, held in a foreign diplomatic facility.

Several news stories in different publications then say this, in almost identical terms, about the thing that happened next: "However, those conditions were varied late last night due to difficulties in arranging to have the sealed container lodged with American representatives."

So instead, the subpoenaed Boston College oral history material stayed with authorities in and of Northern Ireland, stored with and guarded by the courts themselves: "Instead, an amended order was made for the tapes to be taken to the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast and placed in secure storage there."

No one has explained those "difficulties" in turning over the interview material to the American consulate, though there's the hint of an explanation in that reference to a "sealed container": There must have been security problems, as officials at the consulate worried about taking custody of a box without being able to look inside it.

The first striking thing, here, is a problem that comes up over and over again in news coverage of the Boston College subpoenas, as vague descriptions from government officials just show up, undigested, in print. What were the difficulties? Where did they happen? A pair of PSNI detectives stood outside the consulate in the cold while a stern-faced consul peeled back the curtains and wordlessly shook his worried head, or what? Who communicated, and what did they communicate? When? Where? How?

The vagueness of detail paints fog across some strange and implausible events. Again, something happened, and we don't know what it was, but there's surely something more interesting to it than this carefully vague depiction of unnamed difficulties occurring in some undiscovered space and time.

First, a consulate never sleeps; it exists in significant part for the purpose of responding to emergencies. A duty officer is always available -- the website for the U.S. Consulate in Belfast tells you how to contact consulate officials in an after-hours emergency. So if the police in Belfast couldn't make arrangements with the American consulate in Belfast -- "late last night," as the stories make a point of saying -- the one thing that couldn't have been the cause is that they just knocked on the front door and nobody answered because it was, like, real late and stuff. Someone communicated something: Police talked to diplomats. Who said what, in what setting?

Second, about that dangerous "sealed container": It was either sealed by the PSNI or by federal law enforcement authorities in Boston (and probably the latter), who as a matter of policy seal evidence for transport. See, for example, "Packaging and Shipping Evidence," pg. 3, in this FBI manual. The container was sealed by law enforcement authorities in Boston, then carried onto an airplane by police detectives. Then it arrived in Belfast, where officials at the American consulate freaked out over the sealed container?

"Look, pal, I don't know what this 'FBI' thing is, but if they sealed this package, I don't want nothin' to do with it." For security reasons, U.S. government officials refused to take possession of a container sealed by U.S. government officials and held continuously in the personal custody of police detectives from the U.K., America's closest ally? Why? They thought maybe Carmen Ortiz was trying to blow them up with a bomb? Is there a Continuity Department of Justice that hasn't laid down its arms, or something?

A more likely scenario, it seems to me, is that the State Department doesn't want to get the PSNI's shit on its hands, and opted out of a scheme they found distasteful and reckless. The subpoenaed material left the U.S., and the U.S. government can't have been sorry to get rid of it; then the police showed up on the American government's doorstep again, looking forlorn and holding the same package the very same U.S. government had just gotten rid of. Yeah, we'll pass, thanks.

Or something else. But whatever that something is, there are at least as many potential political explanations for the consulate's refusal as there are practical explanations about late nights and sealed containers -- and that's if the consulate really refused, which has just been assumed in all of the reporting to date. Did the State Department just refuse to get involved in the Belfast Project subpoenas?

I've been asking both the State Department and the PSNI for a more detailed description of the "difficulties" that prevented the U.S. Consulate in Belfast from taking possession of the material the court ordered the PSNI to deliver to its custody. Neither have answered my questions yet, and neither seem likely to. I've also filed a FOIA request for consulate records. In the meantime, there are journalists in Belfast who do this all day and for a living. Perhaps one of them can penetrate the fog of "difficulties in arranging to have the sealed container lodged with American representatives."

What were the difficulties? Who, what, when, where, and why?

Maybe the story just turns out to be late night bumbling, missed signals and tired refusals over practical concerns. But someone has to tell that story, first, and I'm constantly amazed at these paragraphs of alleged news that don't bother to explain the things they supposedly exist to explain.

It's still true: The things we don't know are more important than the things we do.

UPDATE, Feb. 19: The PSNI press office sends this response to my questions: "This is not a matter for us – it was a direction of the court which was subsequently altered for reasons we are not aware of."

This is not what newspapers in Ireland and the U.K. reported. They reported, vaguely, that the PSNI was turned away by the consulate during late night discussions, forcing the police to tell the courts that they couldn't deposit the material at the consulate, and so forcing the courts to change their order because of the information they got from the police. Now the police say they have no idea why the court changed its order about the destination of the interview materials.

There is a story here, and something that someone isn't telling. 

SECOND UPDATE, Feb. 19: Complete response from the press office of the U. S. State Department: "We cannot comment further on this pending legal matter. We refer you to the Department of Justice for further information."

THIRD UPDATE, Feb. 23: Complete response from the press office for Northern Ireland courts: "The Northern Ireland Courts & Tribunals Service normally refers queries about judicial decisions to the Office of the Lord Chief Justice.  They have advised that the reasoning behind the judicial decision was not discussed in open court and there is therefore nothing on the court record to say why the venue was changed from the US Consulate to the Royal Courts of Justice."

Government by secrecy and sneaking, with no accountability or transparency at all. 

Damning a Peacemaker

The otherwordly quality of the PSNI's new "investigation" into Winston "Winkie" Rea is captured neatly this week in a sentence from this RTE story: "An international request for the tapes said police have information that Rea was a member of the Red Hand Commando whose interviews would assist investigations into those crimes."

Good Lord! The police have information that Winston "Winkie" Rea was a member of the Red Hand Commando!

Keep this to yourself, but I also have information that Winston Rea was a member of the Red Hand Commando -- it's on Wikipedia, which goes so far as to say he was its leader. Someone rush this new information to the PSNI right away, so they can investigate it.

Similar information on the origins and leadership of this obscure organization can be found in no more than many dozens of books and articles published in the last twenty years.

When books and news stories specifically describe Winston Rea, they reveal a warrior who turned firmly against political violence -- a peacemaker in a serious and lasting way, and the son-in-law of another warrior who came to renounce war. "Winkie is an example of those who fought the war and those who started and continued to build the peace," a unionist political leader told the Belfast Telegraph this week. 

Pursuing Rea as a criminal, the PSNI appears to have used his presence in peace talks against him. One of the accusations laid out against Rea in recent court proceedings is that he "met with former British Prime Minister John Major in 1996" -- in between the declaration of a loyalist ceasefire and the conclusion of the Good Friday Agreement -- proving that he was a member of a paramilitary organization because he had the standing to negotiate on behalf on one. He met with government officials to end a war, your honor, so we know he's a thug.  

Rea was also a regular presence in the Castle Buildings in April of 1998, and this article from 2000 described him as "a member of the PUP's Good Friday Agreement negotiating team." So maybe that can be held against him too, and eventually charged as another crime.
 
Having made peace, Rea has worked to keep it. "There have been significant attempts by former paramilitaries, including Winston Rea and Jackie McDonald, to deglamorize conflicts to young people as a means of reducing their vulnerability to involvement," reads one account.

This is the person the PSNI is now supposedly pursuing as a criminal, decades later. It may be a course permitted under the law -- but it's monstrously stupid policy, and a political course that spits in the face of an entire generation of serious people who found a way to stop killing each other. It really is a picture from Northern Ireland you thought you'd never see.