INDEPENDENT ON FINUCANE MURDER Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit {A/r Liosta copied} Mo Chairde: IMPORTANT CORRECTION: The main news story I filed on the Ireland List and A/r Liosta was mis-dated in the first take I saw. It runs in *today's* Independent, Tuesday, May 4, 1999, as did the following sidebar by Dave McKittrick. And below that, don't overlook the shorter sidebar pointing out that the Northern Ireland Law Society now finds itself in the deep sticky for brushing off demands for a full inquiry on the murder of Pat Finucane (RIP). Take note of the unfortunate metaphor used by an unidentified spokesman for the NI Law Society, who described that organization as "a broad church". Irish-American activist-attorney Tom Burke and some of his conscientious associates in the U.S. could write an oratorio around that Freudian malapropism. And how does that absurd John Major-authored and David Trimble-inspired LoonyTune cry for "decommissioning" look in the light of today's News? Ride this one for all it's worth. Black Jack PS: London's Indy carried a photo of a wall mural with its lede, captioned thus: A Belfast wall mural referring to the murders of solicitors Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson this year - Pacemaker FINUCANE MURDER: EVIDENCE OF CONSPIRACY By David McKittrick, Ireland Correspondent INDEPENDENT, Tuesday May 4, 1999 When loyalist paramilitaries burst into Pat Finucane's north Belfast home and shot him dead in February 1989, they not only inflicted tragedy on his family but also triggered a controversy that refused to go away with the passage of time. Within hours of the killing by the Ulster Defence Association, allegations and rumours were flying thick and fast as republicans and others accused the authorities of having a hand in the incident. Three weeks earlier Douglas Hogg, a Conservative Home Office minister at the time, had told a Commons committee that some solicitors "are unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA". There were also allegations that members of the security forces had encouraged loyalist gunmen to attack the lawyer, telling them that he was one of "the brains behind the IRA". He had appeared in a number of important cases involving IRA suspects, taking successful High Court reviews. This, and his family connections with some prominent republican activists, meant that many members of the security forces came to regard him as a thorn in their flesh. The allegation now is that intelligence knew of an impending attack on him and did not nothing to prevent it. At the time accusations of collusion followed many killings by loyalist groups, whose activities were then increasing in number and selectivity. While random attacks on Catholics continued 1988 to 1994 saw an increasing number of shootings aimed at known republicans. The Conservative government and the security forces dismissed allegations of collusion between the army, police and extreme loyalist groups, apart from some instances when it was said some low-level "bad apples" had misbehaved. A collusion inquiry set up in 1989, however, led to the prosecution of Brian Nelson, an army intelligence double agent who worked for military intelligence while targeting republicans for the UDA, the largest of the loyalist paramilitary groups. The trial produced a great deal of new information, while other facts have seeped out of the murky intelligence underworld over the years. The net effect is that the Finucane case is continually cited by agencies such as the United Nations and Amnesty International. Brian Nelson had the role of intelligence officer for the UDA. He was given thousands of pages of information on republican suspects, much of it emanating from security sources, and in this position appears to have been in a position to guide the UDA's gunmen towards certain targets. In the six years beginning in 1988 the UDA killed 107 people. Many of these were Catholics chosen at random in what were regarded as typical UDA attacks, but a number of victims were regarded as active republicans, including members of Sinn Fein. This change in pattern gave rise to speculation, at the time and since, that loyalists were receiving guidance from some quarter. A new wave of interest in alleged collusion was generated in February when a human rights organisation, British-Irish Rights Watch, submitted a 60-page dossier to the British and Irish governments, saying material it had gathered "strongly suggests that agents of the state have been involved, directly and indirectly, in the murder of its citizens". The material in the report is said to include top secret and highly sensitive intelligence documents. The separate confidential document sent last month from Dublin to London represents the Irish government's evaluation of British-Irish Rights Watch material, concluding that there is a prima facie case for believing "that elements in the security forces may have committed a range of serious crimes". The Irish government document outlines more than a dozen reasons why a public inquiry is now needed. Among those it cites is what it describes as compelling circumstantial evidence in the marked change in the pattern of loyalist killings between 1988 and 1994. It further says there were countless cases of security force activity immediately before the arrival of loyalist gunmen, adding that there was a consistent failure to apprehend, over a six-year period, any of the limited number of loyalist gunmen involved. It says the authorities had failed to account satisfactorily for the activities of military intelligence, and had failed to prosecute a single RUC officer on grounds of collusion. In a covering letter sent with the document, the Irish Foreign Affairs minister, Liz O'Donnell, wrote: "I believe the case for a public inquiry is compelling. The allegations serve to undermine confidence in the rule of law. In my view, they can only be answered with confidence - one way or the other - through the mechanism of a public inquiry." FURY AT FAILED INQUIRY Controversy over the Finucane case has led a group of lawyers to press for the resignations of the council of the Northern Ireland Law Society. This follows a council decision not to support calls for an inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane. A special NI Law Society meeting is to be held next Tuesday to reconsider the Finucane decision and to hear a motion of no confidence in the council. Last month, the society's president, Catherine Dixon, wrote to all solicitors stating the council's intention not to support calls for a full judicial inquiry. This angered those who favour an inquiry, 20 of whom have lodged a petition which resulted in the special meeting. Ms Dixon had written to lawyers explaining that "in the absence of direct or conclusive evidence" the question of a judicial inquiry was a "matter of opinion". A spokesman for the NI Law Society said: "This is a broad church and we are not wanting to come down on one side or the other so that we keep everybody on side." Ms Dixon, in her letter, said that attempts to portray its non-political policy as representing a particular political position "demonstrated the wisdom of the council's non-aligned policy". -- Robert Verkaik ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-05.12.99-02:59:16-25044