MI5 HQ picket: 'Release files on 1989 murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane’

Pat Finucane

MI5 HEADQUARTERS at Palace Barracks in Holywood, County Down, was picketed this week after Wikileaks revelations that MI5 is holding files on the 1989 murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane by a UDA death squad. Pat's family has called for the release of the information held by MI5.

The British state has previously never acknowledged possessing files and information on the murder, widely believed to have been carried out by unionist paramilitaries acting under the direction of British security and intelligence agencies.

Pat Finucane was shot 14 times in his north Belfast home on February 12th 1989. The attack was claimed by the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters.

An RUC Special Branch agent and UDA gunman, Ken Barrett, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004 for the murder.

On his release in 2007, after serving under three years of a recommended 22-year sentence, Barrett was spirited out of Ireland to a safe haven by the British Ministry of Defence.

Another RUC agent, UDA quartermaster William Stobie – shot dead outside his Belfast home on December 12^th 2001 – was also implicated in the killing.

On Monday, members of An Fhirinne (The Truth) – the campaign group highlighting collusion by the British Government in the murders of nationalists and republicans killed during the conflict – picketed MI5 HQ to call for the release of all the files Whitehall's Security Service holds on the case to be released.

An Fhirinne spokesperson Robert McClenaghan said that the former head of MI5, Eliza Manningham Buller, is reported in the Wikileaks revelations as having said she would be prepared to release files relating to the murder of Pat Finucane.

Robert McClenaghan said:

No one knew of the existence of these files until now.  The family have spent over 20 years calling for a public inquiry to find the truth into Pat's brutal murder.

The release of these files could be the catalyst to revealing what actually happened on February 12th 1989.