A high-ranking British government official has contacted the Finucane family to raise the issue of a judicial inquiry into the UDA murder of Pat Finucane in 1989. Dan Keenan reports.
Widespread concerns arose last night that the British government could announce this week that a restricted judicial inquiry would be called. It is feared by campaigners that an inquiry will be governed by new and tighter legislation rather than the Tribunal of Inquiry Act (1921) which is the current framework for investigations such as the Saville inquiry.
Ken Barrett, who pleaded guilty to the murder of Mr Finucane last week, was sentenced on Friday to life with a judge's recommendation that he serve 22 years.
However he could be free by next summer pending an application for early release on licence under terms reached following the Belfast Agreement.
The Finucane family, human rights organisations, the SDLP and Sinn Féin have lobbied consistently for a judicial inquiry into Crown forces' collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. The British government has insisted that all prosecutions in the case should be concluded first.
The family was not available for contact yesterday. However The Irish Times understands that the official who spoke to Mrs Geraldine Finucane on Friday did not discuss the terms of any possible inquiry.
It is feared that new legislation could be enacted to restrict the scope of a Finucane inquiry and that national security would be cited as reason for doing so. Powers to compel witnesses could be curtailed, and the findings could be submitted not to parliament but to the government, thus calling its transparency into question.