North America
SC declines subpoena dispute: The US Supreme Court on Monday in Washington declined to hear an appeal over whether confidential interviews with former Irish Republican militants should be released to police in Northern Ireland.
The legal fight is about whether British authorities, as part of a murder investigation, can access interview transcripts with Irish Republican Army members, which were carried out as part of a Boston College program.
The issue could return to the court, as the legal fight about whether British authorities can access other interview material is set to continue, with a court ruling pending.
As part of a long-unsolved murder, the police in Northern Ireland want access to interviews carried out with members of the IRA and pro-British Unionists.
Investigators in Northern Ireland are seeking to find out who was responsible for the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, who was suspected of informing the British about IRA activities.
Invoking a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States, the British government asked the US government to subpoena the interviews.
The director of the interview project, Ed Moloney, and one of his researchers – and a former IRA member – Anthony McIntyre sought to intervene, raising objections based on First Amendment rights enshrined in the US Constitution. (RTRS) Kerry to visit Smedinghoff family: US Secretary of State John Kerry was to stop in Chicago on Monday to visit the parents of the young US diplomat who was killed while delivering textbooks in southern Afghanistan earlier this month.
Kerry is making the detour on his way back from Japan, the final leg of a 10-day overseas tour which started with tragedy when he learned of Anne Smedinghoff’s death while readying to depart for Turkey on April 6.
At the time, a clearly affected Kerry contacted Smedinghoff’s parents, Tom and Mary Beth, from Andrews Air Force Base. On Monday, he was to fly in directly to see them.
Smedinghoff was just 25 when she and four other Americans were killed while walking from a military base to a nearby school. Two explosions occurred, apparently a suicide car bombing followed by a roadside blast.
An FBI investigation is in its preliminary stages.
Kerry told embassy staff in Tokyo that Smedinghoff was “full of ideals and full of hopes, taking books to children in a school so they can learn.”
She was “wiped out by terrorism – the worst kind of nihilism,” he said.
“It doesn’t stand for anything except killing people and stopping the future,”