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Law
The Murder of Pat Finucane: An Inquiry Denied By Jacob Hudson, JF Law and Political Science “We want to know who pulled the trigger. We want to know who pulled the strings.” Those are the words of John Finucane, Sinn Féin MP for Belfast North, speaking at the Oireachtas Good Friday Implementation Committee, on November 26. He is, of course referring to the murder of his own father, Pat Finucane, perhaps the most prolific human rights and criminal defence lawyer in Irish history. Finucane, a graduate of Trinity’s Law School, attracted fame for representing many Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and republicans in court throughout the 1980s including hunger striker Bobby Sands. Tragically, on February 12, 1989, he was shot dead at the dinner table of his family home in north Belfast, witnessed by his wife, Geraldine Finucane, and three children. The Ulster Defence Association (UDA), an infamous loyalist paramilitary, claimed responsibility for the attack, declaring that Finucane was a high-ranking member of the IRA. These allegations of membership of the republican paramilitary were fiercely denied by his family and were later refuted by the UK Government’s Stevens Report. Despite Finucane’s reputation for representing republican clients, he had also represented those on the loyalist side of the divide. Since that fateful day in February 1989, there has been widespread and since confirmed allegations of collusion between British security forces in Northern Ireland and the UDA over the killing of Finucane. This was confirmed by British Prime Minister, David Cameron in 2012, following the conclusion of the De Silva report. This was a review of all existing documentation regarding the murder by Sir Desmond De Silva, who had previously worked as the United Nations Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone. Cameron issued an apology on behalf of the British Government for the “shocking levels of collusion” between themselves and loyalist paramilitaries. However, even still, the De Silva report itself asserted there was no “over-arching state conspiracy”. In a press conference following the release of the report, Geraldine Finucane condemned the review as a “sham”. She too emphatically declared its failure to identify those responsible for the collusion as “hurtful and insulting”. What the Finucane family want is a public inquiry into the death of the Belfast solicitor, and for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), British security services and loyalist paramilitaries to be prosecuted. Although UDA volunteer, Ken Barrett, pleaded guilty to the murder in 2004 (after tapes resurfaced of his admission to the RUC from 1991), the Finucanes are sceptical of the justice delivered by this trial. To them, Cameron’s admission of collusion hints at many more people with “blood on their hands” - perhaps much higher up in the chain of command. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Black, News Letter
