Speaking outside the High Court in Belfast yesterday, journalist Ed Moloney said that if he failed to overturn the ruling ordering him to hand over his interview notes, the judicial review would be his last challenge.
He said that he and his newspaper had decided in principle to take the case no further. "It will be up to the authorities to decide what to do with me", he added.
Mr Moloney questioned the handling of the case against him. He said that at the outset the prosecution had clearly told the Belfast Recorder, Judge Hart, that William Stobie had made no admissions regarding the murder of Patrick Finucane when he was questioned by the RUC in 1990.
However, during cross-examination by his [Mr Moloney's] counsel, a Scotland Yard detective had "suddenly remembered" that Mr Stobie had indeed made admissions then. He said it had since come to light that, for the past nine years, a record of Mr Stobie's interviews with the RUC had lain somewhere in the files.
His lawyers knew nothing about this until the Antrim court case. On Tuesday, they had failed in a court application to obtain the files. But Mr Moloney said that the records had now been passed to Mr Stobie's lawyer, while being denied to him.
He said he understood that on Wednesday the Director of Public Prosecutions had taken steps to prevent Mr Stobie handing the documents to him.
Mr Moloney said: "Did the authorities mislead the courts about Stobie's admissions? If so, why did they want to hide the existence of these records? Why are they resisting attempts by our side to obtain these records? Why were we deceived? Why are they now going to such lengths to deprive me of this document? What is in these papers that makes them want to hide them from public view?"
Mr Moloney asked whether the interviews would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the authorities had known all the facts in the case - more perhaps than reported by him in the Sunday Tribune - for the past nine years.
"Is it because the real reason for this court order is to punish me for writing up William Stobie's embarrassing allegations of collusion by attempting to deprive me of my livelihood and putting my life in danger?"