Sinn Fein leader will face no charges

DUBLIN – Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams and six other suspected IRA veterans will face no charges over the outlawed group’s 1972 abduction, slaying and secret burial of a Belfast homemaker, Northern Ireland prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Adams, 66, was arrested last year on suspicion of involvement in the disappearance of Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widowed mother of 10 whom the Irish Republican Army believed was a British informer. Detectives freed Adams without charge after four days of questioning, but sent an evidence file to prosecutors.

Northern Ireland’s deputy director of public prosecutions, Pamela Atchison, announced that Adams and six others arrested in the McConville probe would face no charges. Atchison said evidence was “insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction against any of them.”

Deal reached to pull arms from Ukraine

MINSK, Belarus – Representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reached a long-awaited agreement late Tuesday on the withdrawal of tanks and other weapons from the frontline in eastern Ukraine.

“This is a document that opens a path to peace, a path to an end of violence and attacks,” Russian negotiator Azamat Kulmukhametov said.

The deal supplements a broad agreement signed in February aimed at ending the conflict between the Western-aligned Ukrainian government and Russia-backed rebels. Many of its provisions remain unimplemented.

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are meeting in Paris on Friday.

Associated Press