4 IRA Killers Won’t Get Early Parole

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Four IRA members found guilty of killing a police officer will not win early paroles, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Friday, taking a position apparently at odds with Northern Ireland’s peace accord.

The Good Friday accord committed the British and Irish governments to granting early paroles by mid-2000 to all imprisoned members of truce-observing paramilitary groups.

More than 200 members of the IRA and outlawed pro-British groups have been freed. Only those convicted of crimes that occurred after April 10, 1998--the date of the agreement--were to be excluded.

Yet Ahern said lawyers had advised him that four IRA men sentenced Friday “will serve their sentence.”