Finucane tributes at 30yr event

pride. While they did silence him they could not have made a bigger mess of it if they tried.

“The name reverberates around the world and an enormous amount of credit for that is to due to my mother [Geraldine].” Former Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged the “shocking” level of State collusion in the 1989 UDA killing after receiving a report on the evidence.

Sir Desmond de Silva’s review confirmed agents of the State were involved and it should have been prevented – but ruled out an “overarching State conspiracy”. The Finucane family has engaged in years of litigation over what they say is the UK Government’s failure to grant an independent public inquiry.

A Supreme Court judgment on legal action connected to the case is pending.

Mr Finucane represented clients who included convicted members of the IRA and families involved in shoot-to-kill allegations against the RUC.

During the hunger strikes in prison in the 1980s he represented Bobby Sands.

John recalled the early years of their campaign and said: “We were attacked very deliberately and cruelly as nothing more than republican propagandists, that we were an IRA man’s children who did not deserve truth and justice.”

Former Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams hailed Mr Finucane a hero who dedicated his life to aiding others and added his 1989 murder “haunted” the corridors of power to this day.