Finucane accused 'in danger'

Pat Finucane was shot dead in 1989

A court has heard the life of the man accused of murdering solicitor Pat Finucane is in danger at Maghaberry prison.

Ken Barrett, 40, was again refused bail at the High Court in Belfast amid fears he would leave the country or commit further offences.

As well as the 1989 killing, Mr Barrett is charged with attempted murder, the theft of army weapons and membership of the loyalist paramilitary UFF. He has denied the charges.

Pat Finucane was shot dead in 1989 at his north Belfast home in front of his wife and family.

Opposing the bail application, Crown lawyer Gordon Kerr, QC, referred to lengthy conversations recorded in a covert operation while Mr Barrett was living in England, after fleeing Belfast because of death threats.

Mr Kerr said an undercover officer asked the accused about the Finucane murder and he said: "It wasn't the first occasion I done it.

"It was just that he got so much publicity because he was a republican solicitor.

"He was an IRA man and all that. He was in the media and to be honest, he believed he could not be touched.

"He hadn't really got shot. He got massacred. He was hit 22 times. I have to be honest I whacked a few people in the past. People say to me: 'How do you sleep?' I sleep fine."

Mr Kerr said Mr Barrett had also sought to justify the solicitor's killing.

It was also alleged he said: "Finucane was up to his neck in it" and went on to name people allegedly involved in the murder.

Ken Barrett, centre, was brought to Northern Ireland after his arrest

Mr Kerr also referred to alleged admissions made by Mr Barrett in the BBC Panorama programme "Licence to Murder" for which he received £1,300 for travel and accommodation.

He said Mr Barrett had claimed the go-ahead for the shooting was given after Army agent Brian Nelson had passed on a photograph of Mr Finucane.

"We decided he was going down and that's the end of it," Barrett was alleged to have said.

Mr Kerr said it was soon after the murder of William Stobie in 1999, after he was cleared of the solicitor's murder when the case against him collapsed, that a campaign began against Barrett. He was accused of being an agent.

It was then that he was moved to a safe house in England as his life was under threat, the court heard.

Mr Barrett's lawyer Peter Irvine described the recordings made by undercover police as "intrusive surveillance" and said the alleged admissions would be challenged at Mr Barrett's trial.

He said it was a "sting-type" operation which Mr Barrett had gone along with in order to get money.

"The whole scenario is an extremely murky one where these undercover officers were attempting to trap Barrett," said Mr Irvine.

He said recent developments at Maghaberry Prison meant that Mr Barrett's life was in greater danger there than in a safe house in England where his wife still lived.

Mr Justice Kerr refused bail.

He said the Crown's outline disclosed a "strong case" against Mr Barrett who would have an incentive to flee the jurisdiction if released.

There were also substantial grounds for believing he would commit further offences, he said.