Lawyer's family renew inquiry call

Pat Finucane was murdered at his home in 1989

The family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane have called on the prime minister to set up a public inquiry after watching a BBC Panorama investigation into his death.

The first half of the two-part programme, screened on Wednesday, said elements within Northern Ireland's police and military intelligence collaborated with loyalist paramilitaries in the late 1980s over the murder of Catholics.

A man identified as a loyalist killer told the programme the targets included Mr Finucane, who was murdered 13 years ago.

Geraldine Finucane: "Only a matter of time before a public inquiry is established"

Speaking on behalf of the family, the Catholic solicitor's wife Geraldine said Tony Blair should establish a public inquiry forthwith.

"It is difficult to think of anything more serious than to accuse a government of systematically murdering its own citizens as a matter of policy," she said.

"It is only a matter of time before a public inquiry is established.

"The longer the delay the more determined the family will be in pursuing truth and justice."

The programme also revealed that Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey had been targeted by a loyalist gang linked to the allegations of collusion.

Of course it is not satisfactory that these allegations simply remain in the form of a TV programme - they need to be tested in another way

Paul Mageean
CAJ

Mr Maskey told the BBC on Thursday he believed there were more disclosures to come.

"Whilst the programme was shocking, and very graphic, it still is only the tip of the iceberg," he said.

Paul Mageean from the civil liberties group, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, said the programme highlighted the need for a full public inquiry.

"Of course it is not satisfactory that these allegations simply remain in the form of a TV programme - they need to be tested in another way," he said.

Sinn Fein said the new allegations of security force collusion with loyalists in the programme had opened a massive can of worms.

'Dismissed allegations'

However, the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, said the RUC was never formally involved in collusion.

The nationalist SDLP's Alex Attwood told the BBC there needed to be a full international independent inquiry into the murder.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness said the implications of the latest evidence "may be bigger than Bloody Sunday".

Ken Barrett: Secretly filmed

However, Democratic Unionist Party assembly member Sammy Wilson dismissed the allegations, describing them as "tittle-tattle claims by a former paramilitary".

John Ware, who was the reporter on the Licence to Murder programme, stood by the production and said it used first hand accounts and documentation from the time.

However, he added that the allegations concerned certian individuals in the security forces, not the whole organisation.

The second part of the investigation will be aired on Sunday, 23 June.

Mr Finucane was a thorn in the side of the British establishment in Northern Ireland until the Sunday evening in 1989 when loyalist gunmen burst into his home and shot him dead in front of his wife and children.

The story of who killed him and why continues to haunt the authorities in Belfast and London.

Pattern

It also raises disturbing questions about collusion between elements of the security forces and loyalist murder gangs.

The central charge in the programme was that such collusion resulted in the murder of a number of innocent Catholics - among them Mr Finucane.

In one extraordinary moment, reporter John Ware sat in a car with Ken Barrett, a loyalist paramilitary who was unaware that the meeting and others were being secretly filmed and recorded.

Pat Finucane: Allegations of collusion surround murder

Barrett told Ware bluntly: "Finucane would have been alive today if the peelers (police) hadn't interfered."

Barrett - described in the programme by a veteran detective as "a killer" - said a special branch officer encouraged loyalists to murder Pat Finucane.

He then tipped off the assassination squad on the fatal night that the coast around his house was clear - in other words that there were no police or Army patrols around it.

The programme suggested it was part of a pattern, and that at the centre of that pattern were paramilitaries like Ken Barrett, but also the still more sinister figure of Brian Nelson.

'More professional'

Nelson was a former soldier from Northern Ireland recruited by military intelligence and sent back to Belfast to infiltrate the loyalist paramilitary organisation the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

In partnership with his handlers though, his job rapidly and dangerously expanded until he was supplying loyalist killers with intelligence documents from the security forces.

The aim, according to the programme, was to make the targeting by loyalists "more professional".

The result was that innocent Catholics were killed.

Since 1989, Sir John Stevens, who is now commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has been investigating the allegation that shadowy elements within military intelligence and the RUC special branch were colluding with loyalist assassination squads.

The RUC became the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in November last year.