The Lawyers Committee report centres on six areas which are important to the Finucane case.
These are:
1) The Army's Force Research Unit (FRU) and Brian Nelson.
The FRU was a covert British army unit which comprised agents who infiltrated paramilitary organisations. FRU "handlers" advised and debriefed these agents. The committee states that documents reveal a purpose of the FRU was to redirect the killing power of loyalist paramilitaries away from sectarian killings towards "legitimate" republican targets. The FRU recruited Brian Nelson as an agent in 1987 to assist with intelligence on the UDA. He "prepared targeting information" on the solicitor Pat Finucane with the knowledge of the FRU, according to the report.
Yet the report claims that FRU documents relating to Nelson were withheld from the investigations into the affair held by John Stevens, now of the Metropolitan Police, and were subsequently found to have been altered. The lawyers' report says that on the night before Stevens planned to arrest Nelson, the agent fled to England and Stevens's offices were destroyed by fire.
2) RUC Special Branch and William Stobie:
The Special Branch also managed agents who had infiltrated the paramilitaries. The committee claims William Stobie was such an agent and reported to the Special Branch while simultaneously acting as a UDA quartermaster.
In September 1990, Stobie was detained and questioned by the CID section of the RUC. He admitted his dual role to them, told them he had kept his "handlers" aware of the facts relating to Mr Finucane's killing as he knew them, and passed on the names of UDA members involved. Yet, the committee says, despite this the DPP decided on January 16th, 1991 not to charge Stobie in connection with Mr Finucane's murder
3) Martin Ingram's allegations:
The Lawyers Committee interviewed a former FRU member known as Martin Ingram. He said there were three UDA plans to murder Mr Finucane, two of which failed. He said that although both the Special Branch and the FRU knew of the threat to Mr Finucane's life and the failed attempts already made, Mr Finucane himself was never told.
Ingram is convinced the Special Branch must have known about the planned third attack on Finucane. He is also certain that the UDA leader in west Belfast, Tommy Lyttle, was working for the Special Branch and was in charge of both Nelson and Stobie at the time of the murder.
4) Possible instigation of the murder by RUC officers:
The lawyers claim that in 1992, a usually reliable source told them that weeks before Mr Finucane was murdered, RUC officers told detained UDA members that they should target him.
5) Prosecution and subsequent murder of William Stobie:
Months after John Stevens began his third inquiry into the affair in 1999, Stobie was charged with the Finucane murder. In his defence, Stobie said he did not know Mr Finucane was the intended target, that he had passed on information to help prevent a murder and that the DPP had known since 1990 the evidence on which the charges against him were based.
Stobie was found not guilty last November and then called for a public inquiry into the killing. He was shot dead outside his home two weeks later. He had asked for protection but had been denied it.
6) Cover-up - Special branch and the Story of Johnston Brown:
Johnston Brown, a CID officer, alleged that the Special Branch blocked efforts to prosecute one of the two gunmen in the Finucane murder. Brown said that one gunman confessed to the murder in 1991 but instead of prosecuting him, Special Branch recruited him as an informer.