THE powerful brother of a reputed Irish-American mob boss and IRA gun-runner has been forced to relinquish his post as head of the University of Massachusetts after coming under fire for failing to help in the manhunt for the black sheep of his family.

William “Billy” Bulger, 69, a pillar of Boston society, will step down next month with a “golden handshake” of almost $1 million (£625,000) after months of calls for his resignation — despite support from such prominent local figures as Senator Edward Kennedy and Michael Dukakis, a former Democratic presidential candidate.

The saga of the Bulger brothers has transfixed Boston since Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger disappeared after being tipped off about his imminent indictment for 19 murders in 1995.

The pair hail from a family of six children in the clannish Irish-American stronghold of South Boston, or “Southie”, and are sometimes called the “yin and yang” of Massachusetts politics.

Billy studied Latin and Greek and served 17 years as president of the Massachusetts Senate while his older brother served time in Alcatraz and ran the powerful Irish-American Mafia, known as the Winter Hill gang. Jimmy exploited his childhood connection to an FBI agent, John Connolly, to win protection for his gang’s activities in exchange for helping to dismantle the rival Italian-American mob.

In the early 1990s, however, police began digging up the bodies of people Jimmy is believed to have murdered — including one man he blamed for telling police about his involvement in a thwarted 1984 operation to smuggle seven tons of guns and ammunition to the IRA aboard the fishing vessel Valhalla.

Jimmy, now 73, fled before the indictment was announced and is listed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. There is a $1 million reward on his head. He was seen walking in Piccadilly, London, last September.

The pressure on Billy Bulger to resign had intensified since he told a Congressional committee in April that he had spoken to his brother in a pre- arranged telephone call at a friend’s house shortly after his disappearance, but had no idea of his whereabouts. The committee launched a perjury investigation.

Billy Bulger blamed a “calculated political assault” on the university for his decision to go. But The Boston Globe judged he had shown “unseemly” loyalty and had “jumped before he was pushed”.

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