Jean murder suspect ‘unfit to stand trial’
Court told Bell, 79, has dementia IRA shooting inquest cops are reported
A VETERAN republican charged in connection with the IRA murder of Jean Mcconville has dementia and would not be able to fully participate in his trial, a court heard yesterday.
The diagnosis is likely to prompt a defence application that Ivor Bell, 79, is unfit to stand trial on two counts of soliciting the mother of 10’s killing in 1972.
The defendant, from
Ramoan Gardens in
West Belfast, did not appear at the pre-trial hearing in Belfast Crown
Court.
His barrister Dessie
Hutton revealed the outcome of a defencecommissioned medical examination to Judge
Seamus Treacy.
He said: “He suffers from dementia which has a cardiovascular cause and he wouldn’t be able to follow the proceedings.” A prosecutor told the judge he would like to commission a psychiatrist to examine Bell and also requested full access to his medical files.
Judge Treacy adjourned the case until December 16 when lawyers will provide an update on how the case proceeds. Mrs Mcconville’s son Michael was among those watching on from public gallery of the court.
His 37-year-old TWO police officers who a judge said had both given inconsistent, contradictory and unconvincing evidence to an inquest are to be reported to prosecutors.
Mr Justice Horner said there was a basis for concluding officers M and Q may have perverted the course of justice and committed perjury at the mother was dragged from her home in West Belfast’s Divis flats complex by an IRA gang of up to 12 men and women. She was accused of passing information to the Army – a claim later discredited by the Ombudsman.
Mrs Mcconville was shot in the head and secretly buried 50 miles from her home, becoming one of the “Disappeared”.
It was not until 1999 that the IRA admitted the murder. Her remains were found on a beach in Co Louth in 2003.
The case against Bell is based on tapes police secured from an oral history archive collated by Boston College.
Academics interviewed former republicans and loyalists on the understanding the accounts of the Troubles would remain unpublished until their deaths.
But that was rendered meaningless when the PSNI won a legal fight in the US to secure the tapes.
It is alleged an interview was given by Bell – a claim he denies. inquest for IRA man Pearse Jordan.
He told Belfast High Court: “I intend to exercise my discretion and report them. This attempted concealment could have seriously impacted on this hearing.”
Jordan, 22, was shot dead by an RUC officer in West Belfast in 1992. He had been driving a stolen car suspected of ferrying IRA munitions.