Ex-partner accuses James 'Whitey' Bulger of paedophilia

James "Whitey" Bulger's former partner in crime has spent hours combatively sticking to his story that Bulger strangled two young women - and even claimed that the fugitive former crime lord was a paedophile.

Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi made the accusation as Bulger's lawyer aggressively questioned him about his admission that he had engaged in oral sex with his girlfriend's teenage daughter, Deborah Hussey, in the 1970s.

"You want to talk about paedophilia - right over there at that table," Flemmi said, gesturing towards Bulger. Earlier, Flemmi had said that Bulger had a 16-year-old girlfriend he took to Mexico on vacation with him.

Bulger, 83, is accused of participating in 19 killings during the 1970s and '80s while leading the notorious Winter Hill Gang. He fled Boston in 1994 and was one of America's most-wanted fugitives until he was captured in California two years ago.

Bulger's lawyer, Hank Brennan, pressed Flemmi on his assertion that Bulger strangled Hussey in 1985 because she was using drugs, getting arrested and dropping their names when she got in trouble.

Brennan suggested that Flemmi, not Bulger, killed Hussey after she told her mother he had molested her.