Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has apologized for the slaying of a top police detective by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) — 17 years after the lawman was shot dead.
Detective Jerry McCabe was gunned down during the botched 1996 robbery of a post office in County Limerick.
In 2003, Adams called the murder reprehensible, but stopped short of an apology — a shortcoming that infuriated McCabe’s widow Anne, who challenged him to condemn the slaying.
This week, Adams finally spoke out, saying he was sorry for McCabe’s death as well as the wounding of the officer’s colleague Ben O’Sullivan,
The Belfast Telegraph reports.
"I want to apologize to Mrs. McCabe and the McCabe family and to [Officer] Ben O’Sullivan and to the families of other members of the state forces who were killed by republicans in the course of the [Irish] conflict," Adams said during an address in Irish Parliament.
"I am very sorry for the pain and loss inflicted on those families. No words of mine can remove that hurt. Dreadful events cannot be undone," he said. “But I want to restate that the resolve of Sinn Fein and of the majority of Irish people is to ensure that there is never, ever a recurrence of conflict."
Four IRA members were convicted of McCabe’s slaying and given prison sentences. But all have since been paroled.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.