Pat Finucane (solicitor)
Encyclopedia
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
killed by loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
paramilitaries on 12 February 1989. His killing was one of the most controversial during the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
in Northern Ireland. Finucane came to prominence due to successfully challenging the British Government over several important human rights cases in the 1980s. He was shot fourteen times as he sat eating a meal at his Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
home with his three children and wife, who was wounded in the attack. In September 2004, an UDA
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
informer, Ken Barrett
Ken Barrett
Ken Barrett is a Northern Irish former loyalist paramilitary. A leading figure within the Ulster Defence Association , Barrett has been at the centre of allegations about collusion between loyalists and the British security forces during the Troubles.-Early years:Barrett was a native of the...
, pleaded guilty to his murder. Two public investigations concluded that elements of the British state apparatus colluded in Finucane's murder and there have been high-profile calls for a public inquiry. However, in October 2011, it was announced that a planned public inquiry would be replaced by a less wide-ranging review.
Background
Finucane's wife, Geraldine is the daughter of middle-class Protestants; his brother, John, a Provisional Irish Republican ArmyProvisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(IRA) member, was killed in a car crash in the Falls Road, Belfast, in 1972. His brother Dermot successfully contested attempts to extradite him to Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
from the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
for his part in the killing of a prison officer. He was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the Maze in 1983. His third brother Seamus was the fiance of Mairead Farrell
Mairéad Farrell
Mairéad Farrell was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army . She was killed by SAS soldiers during Operation Flavius, a British Army operation to prevent a bombing in Gibraltar.-Early life:...
, one of the IRA trio shot dead by the SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
in Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
in 1988. Seamus was leader of an IRA unit in west Belfast before his arrest in 1976 with Bobby Sands
Bobby Sands
Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
and seven other IRA men, during an attempt to destroy a furniture store in south Belfast. He was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment..
Pat Finucane's best-known client was the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. He also represented other IRA and Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
hunger strikers who died during the 1981 Maze prison protest
1981 Irish hunger strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners...
, Brian Gillen
Brian Gillen
Brian "Ginger" Gillen is a volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and also a member of the IRA Army Council....
and the widow of Gervaise McKerr, one of three men shot dead by the RUC in a so-called "shoot-to-kill
Shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland
During the period known as "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary were accused of operating a shoot-to-kill policy, under which suspects were alleged to have been deliberately killed without any attempt to arrest them...
" incident in 1982. In 1988 he represented Pat McGeown
Pat McGeown
Pat "Beag" McGeown was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.-Background and IRA activity:...
who was charged in connection with the Corporals killings
Corporals killings
The corporals killings was the killing of corporals David Robert Howes and Derek Tony Wood, two British Army soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals killed on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The non-uniformed soldiers were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army , after they...
, and was photographed with McGeown outside Crumlin Road Courthouse
Crumlin Road Courthouse
The Crumlin Road Courthouse was designed by the architect Charles Lanyon and completed in 1850. It is situated across the road from the Crumlin Road Gaol and the two are linked by an underground passage....
.
Death
Finucane was shot 14 times, at his home, by Ken Barrett and another masked man using a Browning Hi-PowerBrowning Hi-Power
The Browning Hi-Power is a single-action, 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. It is based on a design by American firearms inventor John Browning, and completed by Dieudonné Saive at Fabrique Nationale of Herstal, Belgium. Browning died in 1926, several years before the design was finalized...
9mm pistol and a .38 revolver respectively. His killing was widely suspected by human rights groups to have been perpetrated in collusion with officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC) and, in 2003, the British Government Stevens Report
Stevens Report
The Stevens Inquiries were three official British government inquiries led by Sir John Stevens concerning collusion in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the state security forces...
stated that the killing was indeed carried out with the collusion of police in Northern Ireland
The Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) claimed they killed the 39-year-old solicitor because he was a high-ranking officer in the IRA. Police at his inquest said they had no evidence to support this claim. Finucane had represented republicans in many high profile cases, but he had also represented loyalists. Several members of his family had republican links, but the family strongly denied Finucane was a member of the IRA. Informer Sean O'Callaghan
Sean O'Callaghan
Sean O'Callaghan is a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who became an informer for the Garda Síochána and who was later debriefed by the UK's MI5 in the Netherlands...
has claimed that he attended an IRA finance meeting alongside Finucane and Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
in Letterkenny
Letterkenny
Letterkenny , with a population of 17,568, is the largest town in County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland. The town is located on the River Swilly...
in 1980. However both Finucane and Adams have consistently denied being IRA members. In Finucane's case, both the RUC and the Stevens Report
Stevens Report
The Stevens Inquiries were three official British government inquiries led by Sir John Stevens concerning collusion in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the state security forces...
found that he was not a member. Republicans have strongly criticised the claims made by O'Callaghan in his book 'The Informer' and subsequent newspaper articles. One Republican source says O'Callaghan "...has been forced to overstate his former importance in the IRA and to make increasingly outlandish accusations against individual republicans."
Investigations into the murder
In 1999, the third inquiry of John Stevens into allegations of collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries concluded that there was such collusion in the murders of Finucane and Brian Adam Lambert. As a result of the inquiry, RUC Special BranchSpecial Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
agent and loyalist quartermaster William Stobie
William Stobie
William "Billy" Stobie was an Ulster Defence Association quartermaster and Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch informer who was involved in the shootings of student Brian Adam Lambert in 1987 and solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989.His 1990 admissions, to journalist Neil Mulholland, provided new...
, a member of the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
was later charged with supplying one of the pistols used to kill Finucane, but his trial collapsed because he claimed that he had given information about his actions to his Special Branch handlers. The pistol belonged to the UDA, which at the time was a legal organisation under British law. A further suspect, Brian Nelson, was a member of the Army's Force Research Unit
Force Research Unit
Force Research Unit is alleged to be a name used by a covert military intelligence unit established by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army based at Templer Barracks, Ashford in Kent. The FRU is alleged to have been formed between 1980 and 1981...
. He had provided information about Finucane's whereabouts, and also claimed that he had alerted his handlers about the planned killing.
In 2000, Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
demanded that the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in the government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of...
, Peter Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...
, open a public inquiry into events surrounding his death. In 2001 as a result of the Weston Park talks, a retired Canadian Judge Peter Cory was appointed by the British and Irish
Irish Government
The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...
governments to investigate the allegations of collusion
Cory Collusion Inquiry
The Cory Collusion Inquiry was established to conduct an independent inquiry into deaths relating to the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland.A retired Canadian supreme court judge, Peter Cory was appointed to undertake a thorough investigation of allegations of collusion between British and Irish...
by the RUC, British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
and the Gardaí
Garda Síochána
, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...
in the killing of Finucane, Robert Hamill
Robert Hamill
Robert Hamill was a Catholic civilian who was beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Hamill and his friends were attacked on 27 April 1997 on the town's main street. It has been claimed that the local Royal Ulster Constabulary , parked a short distance...
and other individuals during the Troubles. Cory reported in April, 2004, and recommended public enquiries be established including the case of the Finucane killing.
In 2004 a former policeman, Ken Barrett, pleaded guilty to Finucane's murder. His conviction came after a taped confession to the police, lost since 1991, re-surfaced.
In June 2005, the then Irish Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
Bertie Ahern
Bertie Ahern
Patrick Bartholomew "Bertie" Ahern is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 26 June 1997 to 7 May 2008....
told a US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland that “everyone knows” the UK government was involved in the murder of Pat Finucane. On 17 May 2006, the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
then passed a resolution calling on the British government to hold an independent public inquiry into Finucane's killing.
A public inquiry was announced by the British Government in 2007, but under the Inquiries Act 2005
Inquiries Act 2005
The Inquiries Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Act "is designed to provide a framework under which future inquiries, set up by Ministers into events that have caused or have potential to cause public concern,...
, which empowers the government to block scrutiny of state actions. Finucane's family criticised its limited remit and announced that they would not co-operate. Judge Peter Cory also strongly criticised the Act. Amnesty have reiterated their call for an independent inquiry, and have called on members of the British judiciary not to serve on the inquiry if it is held under the terms of the Act.
Finucane's widow, Geraldine (b. 1950), has written letters repeating this request to all the senior judges in Great Britain, and took out a full-page advertisement in the newspaper, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, to draw attention to the campaign.
In June 2007, it was reported that no police or soldiers would be charged in connection with the killing.
On 11th October 2011, members of the Finucane family met with Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street. Cameron provided them with an official apology for state collusion into Pat Finucane's death. Following the meeting, Finucane's son Michael said that he and the family had been "genuinely shocked" to learn that the Cory recommendation of a public enquiry, previously accepted by Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, would not be followed, and that a review of the Stevens and Cory casefiles would be undertaken instead. Geraldine Finucane described the proposal as "nothing less than an insult...a shoddy, half-hearted alternative to a proper public inquiry". The following day, the official apology was given publicly in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson
Owen Paterson
Owen William Paterson is a British Conservative Party politician and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is the Member of Parliament for North Shropshire.-Early life and career:Paterson was born in Whitchurch, Shropshire...
.
Posthumous
Finucane's law firm, Madden & Finucane Solicitors, led by Peter Madden, continues to act for those it considers to have been victims of mistreatment by the State, or their survivors. The Pat Finucane CentrePat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from nationalists and republicans...
(PFC), named in his honour, is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland.
External links
- Pat Finucane Archive maintained by his law firm Madden & Finucane Solicitors
- The Pat Finucane Centre - for human rights and social change.
- FINUCANE v. THE UNITED KINGDOM - 29178/95
[2003 ECHR 328 (1 July 2003)] — European Court of Human RightsEuropean Court of Human RightsThe European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
judgement in the case brought by Finucane's widow Geraldine