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TWELVE of the world’s leading human rights groups have joined together to call for an independent public inquiry into the murder 13 years ago of the Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.The call was made on the 13th anniversary of the murder and was led off by the US-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights who launched a report alleging direct involvement by British State forces. The LCHR warned that any credible public inquiry would now find it impossible to ignore the evidence of State collusion, which has built up around the case.
The LCHR in its report recommends that the British government abandon its proposal originating out of the Weston park talks of July 2001 in which the British and the Dublin administration said they would jointly appoint a “judge of international standing from outside both jurisdictions to undertake a thorough investigation of collusion” in the murder and five other killings.
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“How is one judge with currently undefined powers to review the papers
and interview witnesses in all these complicated cases,” it said.
Pat Finucane’s widow, Geraldine, recalls listening to the evening news
on January 17, 1989 when it was reported that a minister in the British
government of the day, Douglas Hogg, had asked during a debate on the renewal
of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA):
“I have to state as a fact, but with great regret, that there are in
Northern Ireland (sic) a number of solicitors who are unduly sympathetic
to the cause of the IRA.”
One month later, on February 12, her husband was gunned down by two
masked men who burst into the kitchen while the family were having dinner.
It was a member of the British colonial police who told the inquest: “It was the most ferocious murder I have come across. Every shot seemed to strike home and I believe the gunmen involved had murdered before.”
“Immediately Pat was murdered, I started to ask questions,” Geraldine Finucane said, “mainly because of the Hogg statement.”
Other things were to arouse her suspicions. Throughout that day of February
12, 1989, there were Crown Forces patrols saturating the area.
“But the roadblocks were removed 40 minutes before the murder,” she
recalled.
A year after the murder which was claimed by the British-instigated death squad the UDA/UFF, the Stevens inquiry led to the arrest of Brian Nelson who it transpired was the UDA’s intelligence officer who it was also learned worked for the Forces Research Unit (FRU) of the British army. The FRU has been implicated in many of the Crown assassinations in the Six Counties including Derry’s Bloody Sunday. Around the same time UDA quartermaster William Stobie was arrested and confessed to supplying the guns for Finucane’s murder and also to working for the RUC Special Branch.
Geraldine Finucane said the slaying of her husband was part of a systematic plan by the British to use loyalist death squads to murder anyone they wanted killed. “This is not just about one man, it was a strategy,” she said.
She revealed that she has not heard from British Prime Minster Tony
Blair since she presented him with evidence of Crown Forces collusion three
years ago.
“This leads us to suppose what we are saying is true, for otherwise
they would have denied it,” she said.
Under the United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions (1989), Article II of which states:
“In cases in which the established investigative procedures are inadequate because of lack of expertise or impartiality, because of the importance of the matter or because of the apparent existence of a pattern of abuse, and in cases where there are complaints from the family of the victim about these inadequacies or other substantial reasons, Governments shall pursue investigations through an independent commission of inquiry or similar procedure. Members of such a commission shall be chosen for their recognised impartiality, competence and independence as individuals. In particular, they shall be independent of any institution, agency or person that may be the subject of the inquiry. The commission shall have the authority to obtain all information necessary to the inquiry and shall conduct the inquiry as provided for under these principles.”
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