PM Rules Out Finucane Inquiry

The widow and other family of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane are outraged after Prime Minister David Cameron suggested a QC-led review of his murder.

The Finucane family met with Mr Cameron and Northern Ireland's Secretary of State, Owen Patterson, at 10 Downing Street yesterday to request an inquiry into the 1989 loyalist shooting which claimed the life of Mr Finucane.

Geraldine Finucane, Pat Finucane’s widow, said she felt "angry" and "insulted" after David Cameron told her he was proposing a QC-led review of her husband’s case.

The family added that they were "very disappointed" and would not support the initiative.

Speaking after the meeting Ms Finucane went on to say: "I am so angry and so insulted by being brought to Downing Street today to hear what the Prime Minister had on offer.

"He is offering a review. He wants a QC to read the papers in my husband's case and that is how he expects to reach the truth.

"All of us are very upset and very disappointed."

She added that she was "so angry with the Prime Minister that I actually called a halt to the meeting".

The meeting between the Finucane family and Mr Cameron is said to have lasted only 30 minutes.

Mr Finucane, a Catholic solicitor, was shot dead by loyalists while eating his Sunday dinner in 1989.

His killing was one of the most controversial during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Finucane came to prominence due to successfully challenging the British Government over several important human rights cases in the 1980s.

Pat Finucane's best-known client was the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. He also represented other IRA and Irish National Liberation Army hunger strikers who died during the 1981 Maze prison protest, Brian Gillen and the widow of Gervaise McKerr, one of three men shot dead by the RUC in a so-called "shoot-to-kill" incident in 1982.

In 1988 he represented Pat McGeown who was charged in connection with the Corporals killings.

Mr Finucane was shot 14 times as he sat eating a meal at his Belfast home with his three children and wife, who was wounded in the attack.

His killing was widely suspected by human rights groups to have been perpetrated in collusion with officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and, in 2003, the British Government Steven's Report stated that the killing was indeed carried out with the collusion of police in Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) claimed they killed the 39-year-old solicitor because he was a high-ranking officer in the IRA.

Police at his inquest said they had no evidence to support this claim. Finucane had represented republicans in many high profile cases, but he had also represented loyalists.

Several members of his family had republican links, but the family strongly denied Finucane was a member of the IRA

In September 2004 UDA member and security force informer, Ken Barrett, pleaded guilty to his murder. But he served only two years, released in May 2006, under the terms of The Good Friday Agreement.

Meanwhile a former judge was appointed to investigate the allegations of collusion surrounding Finucane's murder and other killings.

The retired Canadian Judge Peter Cory later suggested inquiries into Mr Finucane's death, as well as inquiries into the murders of Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, solicitor Rosemary Nelson and Loyalist Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright. The three other inquiries have already been held.

(DW)