Ivor Bell, who was accused of soliciting the murder of Jean McConville, was acquitted last week in a Northern Ireland court after the judge directed a verdict in his favor. The charges against Bell had resulted from his taped confession, given to researchers at the Belfast Project, an oral history project about the Troubles that I’ve written about extensively over the years. The tapes were the subject of years of litigation after the Northern Ireland authorities requested legal assistance from the US government to obtain them from Boston College under the US/UK mutual legal assistance treaty. After the challenges to the subpoenas were finally, and in my view correctly, rejected and the tapes were produced, there were further challenges in the Northern Ireland courts…

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