Calls grow for Finucane inquiry
BY Ned Kelly
The organisation representing barristers in the Six Counties, the
Northern Ireland Bar Council has added it's voice to the growing
demand for an inquiry into the 1989 murder of solicitor Patrick
Finucane.
Bar council chairman Brian Fee QC has confirmed they are calling for
a Judicial review. The latest demand comes after the British
government had refused earlier calls for an inquiry into Pat
Finucane's death and colluion between loyalists and crown forces on
the grounds that there was no new evidence.
But the document submitted to the British and Irish governments two
weeks ago by the British Irish Rights Watch on the 10th anniversary
of Pat Finucane' murder offers new evidence of collusion. Last year
the British government rejected a UN report's call for an inquiry
saying there was no evidence.
Welcoming the Bar council's decision Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams
said, ``Pat Finucane is the tip of the iceberg of the collusion
between British intelligence forces and loyalist killer gangs. Brian
Nelson was directly involved in setting up Pat Finucane for murder.
Nelson was the number one British intelligence agent inside the UDA
for several years. The British government has questions to answer not
only about the killing of Finucane but also about the collusion of
their intelligence services with loyalists.''
``The Brian Nelson affair is Britain's `Watergate' and there is an
onerous responsibility on the British government to face up to this
issue.'' Added Adams, ``the role of British intelligence, in all it's
guises, directly and indirectly in the killing of Republican
activists and civilians is a major political scandal which London has
sought to cover-up but which will not go away.''
Meanwhile two solicitors who signed the petition calling for an
independent public inquiry into Finucane's murder have accused the
RUC of labelling `Provo solicitors', similar to the tag Pat Finucane
was labelled with.
Frank McManus, the only member of the Fermanagh Bar council to sign
the petition and Pat Fahy a member of the Tyrone bar claim that RUC
detectives in Lisnaskea, Castlereagh and Gough RUC barracks have
labelled them as `Provo solicitors' while interrogating their
clients.
McManus said that such label's were nothing new and that, ``I made
endless complaints but nothing ever happened and I just got fed up
complaining.'' An RUC spokesperson dismissed the claims as ``pure
allegations''.
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