Pat Finucane murder: 'Shocking state collusion', says PM

12 December 2012
Last updated at 07:47 ET

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David Cameron said: “On behalf of the whole country, let me say to the Finucane family, I am deeply sorry”

The level of state collusion uncovered by a report into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane is “shocking”, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

However, the report concluded that there was “no overarching state conspiracy”.

Sir Desmond de Silva’s review confirmed that agents of the state were involved in the 1989 killing and that it should have been prevented.

Mr Cameron has ruled out a full public inquiry.

Mr Finucane was shot dead by loyalists in front of his wife and children at his north Belfast home.

It was one of the most controversial killings of the Troubles.

The review, published on Wednesday, found RUC officers proposed Mr Finucane, 39, be killed, said they passed information to his killers and failed to stop the attack and then obstructed the murder investigation.

Patrick Finucane

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State collusion identified by review

• There were extensive “leaks” of security force information to the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary groups.

• There was a failure by the authorities to act on threat intelligence.

• Employees of the State and State agents played “key roles” in the murder.

• There was a failure to investigate and arrest key members of the West Belfast UDA over a long period of time.

• There was a wider “relentless attempt to defeat the ends of justice” after the murder had taken place.

Sir Desmond found that “senior Army officers deliberately lied to criminal investigators” and that RUC Special Branch “were responsible for seriously obstructing the investigation”.

It also found that an Army intelligence unit, the FRU, “bears a degree” of responsibility because one of their agents, Brian Nelson, was involved in selecting targets.

However, it concluded that Nelson did not provide his handlers with details of the plot against Mr Finucane.

It found that MI5 received intelligence two months before the killing that Mr Finucane was under threat but that no steps were taken to protect him.

It also found that MI5 helped spread propaganda against Mr Finucane in the years before he was killed.

Sir Desmond found that “in 1985 the security service assessed that 85% of the UDA’s ‘intelligence’ originated from sources within the security forces”.

And he was “satisfied that this proportion would have remained largely unchanged” by the time of Mr Finucane’s murder.”

Sir Desmond de Silva QC carried out the review at the government’s request. The Finucanes want a public inquiry as they feared the full truth would not emerge.

In his report Sir Desmond said: “A series of positive actions by employees of the state actively furthered and facilitated his murder and that, in the aftermath of the murder, there was a relentless attempt to defeat the ends of justice.

“My review of the evidence relating to Patrick Finucane’s case has left me in no doubt that agents of the state were involved in carrying out serious violations of human rights up to and including murder.

“However, despite the different strands of involvement by elements of the state, I am satisfied that they were not linked to an over-arching state conspiracy to murder Patrick Finucane.”

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr Cameron was strongly critical of the RUC and Army for their conduct in relation to the killing.

He said Sir Desmond concluded that there was “no political conspiracy” over the murder but that “ministers were misled”.

Mr Cameron added that the report found “no evidence whatsoever that any government minister had fore-knowledge of Mr Finucane’s murder”.

He said that on behalf of the government and the whole country he wanted to say to the Finucane family that he was “deeply sorry”.

Last year, Mr Cameron acknowledged there was state collusion in Mr Finucane’s murder and apologised to his family.

In the report, Sir Desmond found that an account one of the murderers, Ken Barrett, gave to the BBC Panorama programme about receiving intelligence from the RUC was “essentially accurate”.

However, he added that some specific allegations made by Barrett against individual officers were not reliable.

Source:
http://www.ezonearticle.com/2012/12/12/pat-finucane-murder-shocking-state-collusion-says-pm/