A mural dedicated to the murdered solicitor Pat Finucane was unveiled at Beechmount Drive in west Belfast on Sunday afternoon, days ahead of the publication of the de Silva report into his death.
Mr Finucane was shot dead by loyalists at his home in north Belfast in 1989, in front of his wife and children. There have been long-running allegations of British state collusion in the murder.
Mr Finucane’s wife Geraldine, who has led a 23-year international campaign seeking the establishment of an independent public inquiry into the circumstances of her husband’s murder, claimed that any review was bound to fall short. She said she could not accept “that a review by a lawyer could ever be a substitute for an independent public inquiry”.
Sir Desmond de Silva QC’s report will be published on Wednesday, when a formal statement will be made to the House of Commons by British prime minister David Cameron. The Finucane family will travel to London to receive the report and read its contents.
Her son, Michael Finucane, told The Irish Times: “this is not a finished issue. It [the review] is just a repeat of work carried out previously. The whole point of an inquiry is to find out the truth for ourselves.”
At the unveiling, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that the de Silva review represented “a repudiation of an agreement between the British and Irish governments”.
In another development, a previously unseen chapter of John Stevens 2003 report into claims of collusion in the murder of Mr Finucane has emerged. It states that the RUC deliberately destroyed vital evidence in the case.
In the newly revealed chapter, which discusses the RUC’s handling of the investigation into Mr Finucane’s killing, as well as the murder of a Protestant, Brian Adam Lambert, killed by loyalists who thought he was a Catholic, Stevens said that “by any standards the investigation of these two murders was inadequate.” He also noted that “certain documents and other key exhibits are missing”.
