Finucane family to meet Eames over inquiry

The family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane's will meet Church of Ireland Archbishop Robin Eames today in their campaign…

The family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane's will meet Church of Ireland Archbishop Robin Eames today in their campaign to strengthen the powers of an inquiry into his assassination.

The lawyer's widow, Geraldine, is expected to hold talks with Dr Eames in Armagh.

It comes amid the threat of a legal challenge against the Government's decision to convert the terms of an inquiry into another controversial killing in Northern Ireland.

As a new public session into the jailhouse shooting of loyalist terror chief Billy Wright was to be heard in Belfast, sources close to his father, David, said he was preparing to contest a move to have it heard under the new Inquiries Act rather than the Northern Ireland Prisons' Act.

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"David has concerns that this will switch the power from the judge to the Secretary of State," a source claimed. "Evidence can be heard in private and even the final report withheld."

Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory recommended separate tribunals into the murder of Mr Finucane by the Ulster Freedom Fighters at his north Belfast home in 1989 and the killing of Wright, leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, inside the top security Maze Prison after finding possible evidence of collusion.

He also found enough to concern him in the murders of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson and Portadown Catholic man Robert Hamill to warrant similar inquiries.

But this new Inquiries Act has also alarmed the Finucane family, Judge Cory, human rights organisations and nationalist political representatives.

They have criticised the Government's decision to set up a tribunal into Mr Finucane's shooting under these terms, claiming it will restrict information.

Ministers will have the power to determine what is heard in public and what information can be given to the hearings, they say.

The Finucane family who have already met political leaders on both sides of the Irish Border as well as the US consul in Belfast, Dean Pittman, held talks with the Ulster Unionist leader, Sir Reg Empey, in Belfast yesterday.

PA