Pat Finucane (solicitor)

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For other persons named Patrick Finucane, see Patrick Finucane (disambiguation).

Patrick ("Pat") Finucane (born 1949)^[1] was a Belfast solicitor murdered by loyalist paramilitaries on February 12, 1989. His murder is widely suspected by human rights groups to have been perpetrated in collusion with RUC Special Branch officers. He was shot 14 times in front of his wife, Geraldine, a Protestant before her marriage, and his children, by two masked men in his North Belfast home. According to the 2003 British Government Stevens Report the murder was indeed perpetrated in collusion with British police in Northern Ireland ^[2]

The UDA/UFF claimed they killed the 39-year-old solicitor because he was a high-ranking officer in the Provisional IRA. However police at his inquest said they had no evidence to support that. Several members of his family had strong republican links and he represented republicans in many high profile cases, but he had also acted for loyalists.

His brother, John, an IRA man, was killed on "active service" in a car crash in the Falls Road, Belfast, in 1972. His brother Dermot successfully contested attempts to extradite him to Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland for his part in the murder 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, one of the IRA trio shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988^[3]. Seamus was leader of an IRA unit in west Belfast before his arrest in 1976 with Bobby Sands and seven other IRA men, during an attempt to destroy a furniture store in south Belfast. He got 14 years^[4].

Pat Finucane's best-known client was the IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands. He also represented other IRA and INLA hunger strikers who died during the 1981 Maze prison protest, Brian Gillen and the widow of Gervaise McKerr, one of three men shot dead by the RUC in a so-called "shoot-to-kill" incident in 1982.

In 1999 as a result of the Stevens Report, RUC Special Branch agent and loyalist quartermaster William Stobie, a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was later convicted of supplying one of the pistols used to kill him^[5]. The paramilitaries belonged to the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), which at the time was a legal organisation under British law.

In 2000, Amnesty International demanded that the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson, 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 governments to investigate the allegations of collusion by the RUC, British Army and the Gardai in the murder of Finucane, Robert Hamill and other individuals during the Troubles. Cory reported in April, 2004, and recommended public enquires be established including the case of the Finucane murder.

An inquiry has since been announced by the British Government, but under the Inquiries Act 2005, which empowers the government to block scrutiny of state actions. Finucane's family have criticised its limited remit and announced that they would not co-operate with the enquiry. 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.^[6]. On 17 May 2006, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on the British government to hold an independent public inquiry into Finucane's murder^[7].

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, to draw attention to the campaign, which has become a cause celebre amongst republicans and other activists.

In 2003, Sean O'Callaghan, claimed that he had seen Finucane at a IRA meeting in Letterkenny, County Donegal and also claims that Finucane had to have been a member of the IRA .^[8] This claim had been made before by other people but O'Callaghan's statement was significant because he was a former senior IRA member turned Garda informer. There is, however, no police evidence whatsoever that Finucane was a member of the PIRA even if three of his brothers were members.^[9]

[edit] Posthumous

Finucane's law firm, Madden & Finucane Solicitors, now led by Peter Madden, continues to advocate for those it considers to have been victims of the State, or their survivors.

The Pat Finucane Center (PFC), named in his honour, is also a nationalist advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland.

His son Michael is now a practising solicitor.