Judge to see secret Whitehall papers next week on Finucane killing collusion

A previously unpublished chapter of the 2003 inquiry by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens revealed that the RUC deliberately destroyed vital evidence in the case

HOW MUCH Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, military and political chiefs officially knew about unionist death squads run by the British Army and MI5 and the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane could be revealed by documents a High Court judge has ordered the British Government to hand over for his examination.

The documents will be given to the judge next week.

Pat Finucane was shot dead at home, in front of his family, in February 1989 by the UDA/UFF. At least two of those involved in the murder of the troublesome civil liberties advocate were British Government agents.

Pat Finucane’s widow, Geraldine, has petitioned the courts for several documents after Prime Minister David Cameron reneged in October 2011 on a British Government pledge to hold a full, independent inquiry into the 1989 assassination.

Cameron instead ordered a review of the evidence by senior QC Sir Desmond de Silva.

In meetings with the Finucane family and their legal representatives prior to the announcement of the de Silva review, Cameron lead them to believe he would honour the commitments of the Tony Blair Labour Government for an inquiry.

In his 2012 report, de Silva confirmed there was collusion in the Finucane killing but found “no overarching conspiracy”.

An angry Geraldine Finucane described the report as a “whitewash”.

She is now seeking full disclosure of documents relating to meetings involving Cameron, the then Secreatary of State Owen Paterson, officials from the NIO and the Cabinet Office.

The Belfast High Court this week heard about a paper sent to Prime Minister Cameron in July 2011 by security advisor Ciaran Martin in which the security analyst says:

“In terms of allegations of British state ‘collusion’ with loyalist paramilitaries, this is the big one.

“Some of the evidence available only internally could be read to suggest that within Government at a high level this systematic problem with loyalist agents was known but nothing was done about it.

Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly said after the High Court hearing this week:

“It’s also potentially the case that credible suspicions of agent involvement in Mr Finucane’s murder were made known at senior levels after it and that nothing was done; the agents remained in place. These two points essentially aren’t public.

“Paid state agents were directly involved in the killing, including the only man ever convicted of involvement in it.”

“The documents revealed in court today clearly point to a web of cover-up within the British Government and their intelligence services about the murder of Pat Finucane”.

❏ An RTÉ Freedom of Information battle with the British authorities last December revealed a previously unpublished chapter of the 2003 inquiry by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens into the murder.

Stevens’s investigation revealed that the RUC deliberately destroyed vital evidence in the case. Exhibits and records ‘could not be found’ and fingerprints at the scene were not compared against suspects.

The Stevens Report also stated that one of two murder weapons, a Browning pistol, was recovered by police but then given back to the British Army, from where it had previously been stolen by loyalists.