Family bid for pubilc inquiry into murder of solicitor dad

THE family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane have urged the UK’s highest court to rule that there should be a public inquiry into his death.

As his widow, Geraldine, arrived at the Supreme Court in London yesterday, she said they were feeling optimistic that the five justices hearing the case would rule in their favour.

Speaking outside the court with sons John and Michael, daughter Katherine and 15-year-old grandson Piaras by her side, Mrs Finucane said they had come ‘for an inquiry and for justice’.

Asked what they would do if the latest bid for an inquiry failed, she vowed: ‘We will never stop.’

Her husband, Pat, 39, was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989 in an attack found to have involved collusion with the British state.

Mr Finucane, who represented a number of high-profile republicans, was murdered in front of his wife and children at their north Belfast home.

Former British prime minister David Cameron decided not to hold a public inquiry into the killing, but ordered an investigation by a senior lawyer.

The review by Sir Desmond de Silva QC, a former UN war crimes prosecutor, concluded there was ‘no overarching state conspiracy’ in the lawyer’s death but found ‘shocking’ levels of state collusion involving the army, police and MI5.

Mrs Finucane has described Sir Desmond’s 2012 report as a ‘whitewash’ and said the British government unlawfully ‘reneged’ on a promise that a public inquiry would be held.