Ann McCabe has described the apology from the men who killed her husband, Det Garda Jerry McCabe, as an irrelevant publicity stunt designed to improve their public image.
Mrs McCabe said yesterday that she did not believe the four men, currently prisoners in Castlerea prison, had any remorse.
Asked on RTÉ's Pat Kenny Show about the apology issued by the men on Sunday, she said: "It's irrelevant. I think it's just a publicity stunt for them.
"It's a PR exercise for Sinn Féin/IRA because of all the publicity that's with them at the moment between murder, criminality, racketeering, you name it. Everything they have been involved in.
"They have the glare of all this publicity on them now, and I think it's just a PR exercise to try to take that glare away from them."
On the same programme Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris maintained that in 2003 the killers were within an hour of being released.
"If David Trimble had accepted Gen John De Chastelain's report, the comprehensive agreement was signed, sealed and delivered, and they would have been released."
However, last year the Taoiseach said the Government would have spoken to the McCabe family before any release, indicating that the release was not as imminent as was suggested by Mr Ferris, but would have happened very quickly after a deal was done.
Mrs McCabe said the release of the men should never have been on the table. "These men are saying now that they don't want to be pawns in the peace process. I felt I was a pawn in the peace process for a long time."
She said she was not interested in hearing the men expressing remorse, "because on the final day of the trial one of the main perpetrators of the murder of my husband said 'no remorse'. "
She said it did not matter at this stage. "It's nine years too late, and it won't bring Jerry back, no matter what they say.I don't think they will ever come to remorse. They don't know the meaning of it. All they are interested in is criminality and murder, and I can assure you there will be one of those people, if and when they are released, who is quite capable of doing the same thing again, and God help the next family who has to face up to that." She said she saw parallels between her husband's case and that of the McCartney family because there had been intimidation of witnesses in both cases.
Mrs McCabe said the IRA intimidated one of the main witnesses in the trial following her husband's killing. The witness was warned to retract his statement and that his life was in danger. "That's why we had to go for manslaughter."
She also said it was appropriate to compare Gerry Adams and the late Yasser Arafat because she saw both as terrorists. She believed if you trained, funded or gave support to terrorists, you were a terrorist yourself.