text: Gerry Adams has sparked outrage over comments he made on US television about notorious abduction and murder of Jean McConville . Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has described the notorious abduction and murder of Jean McConville as 'what happens in wars'. In an interview on US television, he sparked outrage by suggesting that incidents like Mrs McConville’s murder happened ‘in every single conflict’. The comments have angered relatives of Mrs McConville, whose abduction, disappearance and subsequent murder became one of the most shocking events of The Troubles. She was 37 when she was taken by a masked gang from her home in Belfast in front of her children. She was accused by republicans of being a British Army informer, suffocated with a plastic bag and shot dead. Her remains were eventually discovered by a dog walker buried in a dune on Shelling Hill Beach in County Louth in 2003, ending decades of torment for her relatives and enabling them to finally give her a proper burial. Last year Mr Adams, who has long denied he was even in the IRA, was arrested by police investigating Mrs McConville’s murder. He denied any involvement and was released without charge. But then last month, the influential American magazine the New Yorker named Gerry Adams as a former IRA commander who personally passed ‘death sentences’ on its enemies. It published a damning 15,000-word assessment of allegations against him and claimed that Adams himself issued the order to ‘disappear’ Mrs McConville. The mother-of-ten, pictured with three of her children, disappeared from her Belfast home in 1972 . In an interview with CBS this weekend, Mr Adams insisted that he did not know about Mrs McConville’s killing. He said that he only reported himself to the police last year after a ‘tsunami of stories’ about his alleged involvement that were based on reports of interviews given by former IRA paramilitaries to Boston College in the US. Mr Adams said: ‘They (the police) said that I was a senior manager of the IRA at managerial level so I’m bound to have known. I told them I didn’t. In the preview of the interview, which will be shown in full on Sunday, CBS presenter Scott Pelley said: ‘It was known to the IRA and you’re saying you didn’t know? Mr Adams said: ‘Yes’ McConville's daughter Helen McKendry described Gerry Adams as having 'blood on his hands' Mr Pelley asked: ‘How do you orphan 10 children? What kind of depravity is that?’ Mr Adams said: ‘That’s what happens in wars, Scott. ‘That’s not to minimize it, but that’s what American soldiers do, British soldiers do, Irish Republican soldiers do, that’s what happens in every single conflict.’ The comments sparked anger from Mrs McConville’s family. Helen McKendry, now a grandmother, was one of the 10 McConville children orphaned when she was suffocated with a plastic bag and shot in the head. She said: ‘He’s a liar ... I would like Gerry Adams to stand up and admit he played a part. ‘This man has blood on his hands and I want him to pay for what he did.’ Mr Adams’ arrest last May caused uproar among his supporters and, in his view threatened the peace in Northern Ireland that he helped broker with the Good Friday agreement in 1998. In the CBS interview, Mr Adams said he decided to contact the police himself because he was ‘sick, sore and tired of a tsunami of stories based upon these tapes linking me to Mrs McConville’s death’. Mr Adams told CBS that he never pulled a trigger, ordered a murder or set off a bomb during The Troubles. He said: ‘I don’t disassociate myself from the IRA. I think the IRA was a legitimate response to what was happening here. ‘I never will (disassociate himself from the IRA). But I was not a member of the IRA.’
target: Jean-McConville, 37, was taken from her Belfast home by masked gang .
  She was accused of being a British army informer by republicans .
  The mother-of-ten was suffocated with a plastic bag and shot dead .
  Gerry Adams said incidents like her murder happen 'in every single conflict'