Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams remains in police custody today as detectives questioned him over his alleged role in the Irish Republican Army killing of Belfast woman Jean McConville in 1972.

Senior Sinn Fein politicians said yesterday that they hoped he would be released soon without charge. 

Under Northern Ireland’s anti-terrorist law he can be held for two days, then police must release or charge him or seek a judicial extension to custody.

Mr Adams denies any role in the killing, though former IRA members who spoke on tape for a US Boston College research project have linked him to her abduction, killing and secret burial.

But serious questions remain unanswered about the veracity of the taped interviews and the motive of those giving them.

And Mr Adams himself has denounced the killing.

“I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family,” Mr Adams said before going to the police station in Belfast to surrender himself for interview on Wednesday night. 

“Well-publicised malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject them. 

“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.”

Police have been making arrests based on the evidence of taped interviews with IRA veterans obtained from Boston College. 

Its Belfast Project involved the collection of interviews with 26 IRA veterans detailing their own and colleagues’ careers. They spoke on condition their words be kept secret until their deaths.

After a protracted legal wrangle that reached the US Supreme Court, many of the tapes were handed over to the Northern Ireland police last year.

Mr Adams’ supporters argue that the police investigation is designed not to bring justice but to claim a political scalp.

His Sinn Fein colleague Martin McGuinness has claimed that the arrest is due to a “dark side” within policing conspiring with enemies of the peace process.

He added that the detention was a “deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of elections” in three weeks’ time.