Against the backdrop of members of the lawyer’s family describing the review from Sir Desmond De Silva QC as a ‘whitewash’, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the events around the killing were an ‘appalling’ collusion between elements of Britain’s security services and loyalist gunmen in province. The Times newspaper quoted Mr Cameron as saying the report made ‘extremely difficult reading’ and that ‘it is really shocking that this happened in our country’.

IRA members

According to the newspaper, the report found that agents of Britain’s internal security force, MI5, along with at least one member of the then Royal Ulster Constabulary, had suggested to loyalist paramilitaries that Mr Finucane should be killed and indeed were involved in the murder itself.
Mr Finucane, a Catholic, built a reputation in Belfast as one of the few lawyers prepared to represent alleged paramilitaries. While he was renowned for acting for several high-profile IRA members – including famous hunger striker Bobby Sands – he also represented loyalists.

Thorn in flesh

The Belfast Telegraph writes today that Mr Finucane ‘was regarded by the security authorities as a thorn in their flesh [and that] his unpopularity in police and military circles was so well known that within days of his murder allegations were made in Belfast that the loyalist gunmen who killed him had been assisted by intelligence personnel’.