Old Bailey bomber Marian Price is to sue Disney+ for defamation after hit show Say Nothing depicted her killing Jean McConville 50 years ago.
Price, also known as Marian McGlinchey, has denied playing any part in the 1972 murder of Mrs McConville, who was abducted, killed and secretly buried by the IRA.
Her remains were found buried on a beach in Co Louth in 2003.
Say Nothing, based on the book of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe, focuses on Marian Price and her sister Dolours, who died in 2013, and the activities of an IRA unit called ‘The Unknowns’.
In one scene, the Price sisters are shown standing behind Mrs McConville, who is seen kneeling over a freshly dug grave.
The scene depicts Marian Price taking a gun from her sister and firing a shot, killing Mrs McConville.
Peter Corrigan, acting for Price, said his client intends to sue for defamation.
“Given the context, it is difficult to envisage a more egregious allegation than the one to which has been levelled against our client,” Mr Corrigan said.
“As someone who has been involved at every level of the related Boston College criminal proceedings, it is clear that the instant allegation is not based on a single iota of evidence.
“Such allegations published on an international scale are not only unjustified, but they are odious insofar as they seek to cause our client immeasurable harm in exchange for greater streaming success.
“Our client has now been forced to initiate legal proceedings to hold Disney to account for their actions.”
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Disney+ has been approached for comment.
The Boston College tapes were part of an oral history project exploring the Troubles. It featured anonymous interviews with former members of both loyalist and republican paramilitaries.
Also known as the Belfast Project, some of the tapes – which were meant to remain secret until after the participants had died – were subsequently subpoenaed by the PSNI and were used in several court cases.
Both Marian and Dolours Price were jailed for their role in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing.
The sisters went on hunger strike while in prison in England in a bid to be repatriated to Northern Ireland and were force-fed by the authorities.
Both were freed in 1980 on a Royal Prerogative of Mercy and later became vocal opponents of Sinn Fein.
Marian Price was charged with providing a mobile phone linked to the killing of two soldiers by the Real IRA at Massereene Barracks in Antrim in 2009. She subsequently pleaded guilty.
In 2011, she was also charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation relating to her involvement in a statement given during an Easter Rising commemoration in Derry. The charges were later dismissed.
Marian Price was released from prison in 2013.