MANY OF the answers sought by the family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane “may not be far away”, a Northern Ireland Office minister has said as he defended the British government’s decision not to hold a full public inquiry.
Barrister Sir Desmond de Silva has been given until the end of 2012 to examine up to a million pages of documentation held on the 1989 killing, along with authority to search for other papers held by the British security services or government departments.
Addressing the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Brighton yesterday, Lord David Shutt said British prime minister David Cameron “had for the first time acknowledged plainly that there was state collusion” in the killing of Mr Finucane.
Mr de Silva was “no patsy” and had a reputation “of speaking truth to power”, said Lord Shutt, the Liberal Democrat peer who speaks for the British government in the House of Lords. He hoped that the Finucane family – who responded furiously to being denied a full inquiry – would “give it a chance”.
Lord Paul Bew, who acted as historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, said a greater number of figures central to the Finucane killing were now dead than was the case when the inquiry into the Derry shootings began.
Mr de Silva’s powers to examine documents was “certainly not less” and may “even be broader in scope” than was enjoyed by the Bloody Sunday inquiry, he said, adding that the paper trail was central to its success.
Sinn Féin Stormont Assembly member Barry McElduff said there was “great dissatisfaction and anger” about London’s refusal to set up an inquiry, since people wanted to know “how high up the chain” did authorisation come for Mr Finucane’s murder.
