The widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has hailed the first day of a long-campaigned for public inquiry into his death as “monumental”.
The 39-year-old was shot dead at his family home in north Belfast in 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association in an attack found by a series of probes to have involved collusion with the state.
The Finucane family has been campaigning for decades for a public inquiry to establish the extent of security force involvement.
During his opening statement to the Patrick Finucane Inquiry, inquiry chairman Sir Gary Hickinbottom said the conclusions he reaches will be informed by the evidence he hears and nothing else.
Sir Gary opened the first hearing of the independent inquiry, describing the killing of the prominent Belfast solicitor by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989 as a “horrific murder which remains one of the most high-profile and controversial of Northern Ireland’s troubled past”.
During the start of his opening statement, he also paused for a moment to remember all those killed during the Troubles.
Sir Gary went on to say that while investigations have taken place into Mr Finucane’s murder in the past, none were compliant with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The inquiry will be inquisitorial, he went on, and will have powers to require organisations to provide evidence and to compel witnesses to attend, but it cannot rule on or determine anyone’s civil or criminal liability.
Sir Gary stressed the independence of the inquiry, and said the conclusions he reaches “will be my own, informed by evidence and the submissions I receive, and nothing else”.
Earlier, Mr Finucane’s widow Geraldine was accompanied by family who arrived in a large coach at the venue for the inquiry in south Belfast.
Flanked by her sons Michael and John, and daughter Katherine, as well as Mr Finucane’s brothers Martin and Dermot, Mrs Finucane said no-one wanted to miss the long-awaited day.
Speaking to media outside Bradford Court, she said: “As you can see by the number of people who are with me today, this is a monumental day for our family.
“We have waited 37-and-ahalf years for this day and not one of us wanted to miss it.
“We fought long and hard to get to the truth, and to get to justice, and that’s what we’re hoping that this inquiry will provide us with.
“We’re hoping that all those questions that have never been fully answered will be answered during the inquiry and it will be thorough, and it will satisfy us, and then we will have closure.”
Mrs Finucane described mixed feelings on the first hearing day, but emphasised she was really glad it was happening after previously fearing it never would.
“I’m hoping for the best as usual, hoping for no more delays, no more obstructions and just so we can get it finished with, and get closure,” she said.
“It’s more about who was pulling the strings, why was Pat targeted, why were we never warned that he was targeted on more than one occasion, who thought it up, why was this strategy put in place.
“These are questions that need to be fully answered, not glided over superficially anymore.
“This is the opportunity to do that and get it right.”
Mrs Finucane added: “Maybe we will find out that what happened to Pat happened to a lot of other people, and maybe we will find out the strategy behind it all and who was responsible.”
The inquiry into the circumstances of Mr Finucane’s death was announced by Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn in 2024.
Last June the Government announced senior judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom as chairman of the inquiry.
The first hearing on Tuesday has been described as a “procedural hearing which will provide an opportunity to introduce the public to the inquiry”.
Pat Finucane has been remembered for his love of the law and role in “embryonic human rights” during some of the most chaotic years of the Northern Ireland Troubles on the first day of a public inquiry into his 1989 murder.
The prominent Belfast solicitor was killed in front of his wife and three children, aged 17, 12 and eight, in their home in the north of the city by loyalist paramilitary gunmen on February 12 1989.
His family has campaigned for decades for a public inquiry to investigate the extent of security forces involvement in his killing.
The first day of the Patrick Finucane Inquiry on Wednesday heard that his father had worked two jobs to feed his family, and how he had gone on to become the first of his family to go to university when he studied English, French and philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin.
It was here in the late 1960s that the west Belfast man met his wife Geraldine, who was from the Protestant community in Northern Ireland, and went on to study law.
Danny Friedman KC, counsel for the Finucane family, said Mr Finucane did not join the IRA, nor was he even vaguely sympathetic to it and, as an inquest into his death heard, had been a law-abiding citizen going about his business.
He said Mr Finucane found that he loved law and the opportunity to help others.
He told the first day of the inquiry that Mr Finucane, along with Peter Madden, founded the firm Madden and Finucane in 1979 to “help others who had no other constitutional avenue to help themselves”.
“Pat Finucane and Peter Madden held a mirror to the establishment using the standings of the rule of law and embryonic human rights,” he said.
Mr Friedman pointed out the clients Mr Finucane defended included Bobby Sands who would go on to die during an IRA hunger strike, as well as Patrick McGeown who was acquitted of the 1988 killings of British Army Corporals Derek Wood and David Howes in west Belfast.
He said this led to the RUC telling the government that Mr Finucane was “one of the lawyers in the pockets of terrorists”, and that he was regarded as a “thorn in the side of the establishment”.
He told the inquiry that Mr Finucane was never told of intelligence he was under threat in 1985 and November 1988, and that MI5 “deliberately spread false information”.
Mr Friedman said that the fact of collusion in Mr Finucane’s murder is “no longer disputed” following multiple investigations.
You must be logged in to post a comment.