THE UNITED States Supreme Court has granted a temporary stay on the handover of taped interviews conducted by author and journalist Ed Moloney and writer and former IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre with combatants in the Troubles in the North.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer yesterday granted the stay on the handover of interviews from the Belfast Project at Boston College to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The stay will be in place until at least October 11th.
On that date the US government is due to formally respond to an application from the attorneys for Mr Moloney and Mr McIntyre seeking the handover be stayed until the court decides whether to hold a full hearing on the case.
The men are involved in legal actions in the US and Northern Ireland with a view to blocking the handing over of the interviews to the PSNI. The recordings include one Mr McIntyre carried out with Dolours Price. The PSNI want that interview to aid its investigation into the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, one of the so-called “disappeared”. Mr McIntyre has said the PSNI obtaining the recordings would place his life in danger. He and Mr Moloney promised the interviewees confidentiality until the interviewees had either consented to publication or died.
Mr Moloney, who lives in New York, has amassed a strong lobby to oppose the release of the material, saying it could harm the peace process.
