In the early hours of 25 August 1987,
Colour Sergeant John Fletcher of the
Ulster Defence Regiment raided the armory of
Palace Barracks in
Holywood, County Down, and transferred weapons and ammunition into a van before driving it out of the barracks. Among the items stolen were a pair of
Bren light machine guns and eleven
Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistols. Fletcher then drove to the Cavehill Road in Belfast and sold the arms cache to UDA members for £3,000. On 17 November 1988, UDA quartermaster
William Stobie, who was also a
RUC Special Branch agent, was handed a Browning Hi-Power for servicing. Stobie took note of the
gun serial number (No. BL67A 4931), then
field stripped and oiled the pistol before returning it. Stobie reported the incident to his RUC handlers a few days later and subsequent enquiries matched the pistol's serial number to the batch that was stolen from Palace Barracks. On 6 February 1989, Stobie was requested to provide the same Browning Hi-Power pistol for an upcoming attack. After he transferred the weapon on 12 February 1989, Stobie warned his RUC handlers that it was to be used imminently against a "top PIRA man". At around 7:00 pm on 12 February 1989, UDA members hijacked a
Ford Sierra mini-cab in
Glencairn and drove it to a safe house where members of a hit team were waiting.
Ken Barrett, who was also an RUC Special Branch agent, then drove the mini-cab to the Antrim Road area, with two UDA gunmen as passengers. The hit team arrived at the Finucane family home on Fortwilliam Drive at 7:30 pm. While Barrett waited in the car, the two gunmen kicked down the front door of the house, with the help of a sledgehammer, and ran inside. Finucane was clutching his fork when he died. The UDA team then drove to the
Woodvale area where the getaway car was dumped, then went to a UDA safe house in
Highfield to change clothes and destroy
forensic evidence linking them to the shooting. On 4 July 1989, a 9mm pistol, with the same serial number as the Browning Hi-Power reported by Stobie to his RUC handlers, was recovered by authorities on the
Shankill Road and a
forensic firearm examination proved it was the same pistol used in the murder of Pat Finucane. The Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) claimed they killed the 39-year-old lawyer Finucane because he was a high-ranking officer in the IRA. Police at his inquest said they had no evidence to support this claim. Finucane had represented republicans in many high-profile cases, but he had also represented
loyalists. In Finucane's case, both the RUC and the
Stevens Inquiries found that he was not a member of the IRA. Republicans have strongly criticised the claims made by O'Callaghan in his book
The Informer and subsequent newspaper articles. One Republican source says O'Callaghan "has been forced to overstate his former importance in the IRA and to make increasingly outlandish accusations against individual republicans."
Later investigations Rosemary Nelson, a lawyer who was murdered in 1999, also worked hard to obtain an independent inquiry into the murder of Finucane. In 1999, the third inquiry by John Stevens into allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries concluded that there was such collusion in the murders of Finucane and
Brian Adam Lambert. As a result of the inquiry, RUC Special Branch agent and loyalist quartermaster
William Stobie, a member of the UDA, was later charged with supplying one of the pistols used to kill Finucane, but his trial collapsed because he claimed that he had given information about his actions to his
Special Branch handlers. 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, the
Cory Collusion Inquiry was established; retired Canadian Judge
Peter Cory was appointed by the governments
of Britain and
Ireland to investigate the allegations of collusion by British and Irish security forces in the killing of Finucane, the
Killing of Robert Hamill, the killings of Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan in the
1989 Jonesborough ambush, as well as other killings during the Troubles. Cory reported in April 2004 and recommended public enquiries be established including the case of the Finucane killing. The hard drives of Cory's inquiry were wiped by MI5 "in the interests of national security" in 2002. In 2004, Ken Barrett pleaded guilty to Finucane's murder. His conviction came after a taped confession to the police, lost since 1991, re-surfaced. 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 killing.
Initial investigations A public inquiry was announced by the British Government in 2007, but Finucane's family criticised its limited remit and announced that they would not co-operate. In 2012, Amnesty International reiterated its call for an independent inquiry and called on members of the British judiciary not to serve on the inquiry should it be held under the terms of the 2005 Inquiries Act. Finucane's widow, Geraldine, wrote letters repeating this request to all the senior judges in Great Britain and took out a full-page advertisement in
The Times newspaper to draw attention to the campaign. In June 2007, it was reported that no members of the security forces would be charged in connection with the killing. On 11 October 2011, members of the Finucane family met with Prime Minister David Cameron at
10 Downing Street. Following the meeting, Finucane's son Michael said that he and the family had been "genuinely shocked" to learn that the Cory recommendation of a public enquiry, previously accepted by
Tony Blair, would not be followed and that a review of the Stevens and Cory case files would be undertaken instead. Geraldine Finucane described the proposal as "nothing less than an insult...a shoddy, half-hearted alternative to a proper public inquiry". Finucane's wife Geraldine declared in court papers that Cameron stated at the meeting that: "It is true that the previous administration could not deliver a public inquiry and neither can we. There are people in buildings all around here who won't let it happen." The following day, the official apology was given publicly in the
House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,
Owen Paterson. Based on conversations she had had with
Peter Cory, Finucane's widow subsequently claimed that
Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister at the time of the murder, "knew exactly what was going on". She claimed that Cory had told her that he had seen papers marked 'for cabinet eyes only' and they involved collusion and the killing of her husband.
de Silva report On 12 December 2012, the government released the Pat Finucane Review, the results of the inquiry conducted by Sir
Desmond Lorenz de Silva. However, Finucane's family denounced the De Silva report as a "sham" and a "suppression of the truth" into which they were allowed no input.
2015 lawsuit In late 2015, three former RUC officers, Trevor McIlwrath, Johnston Brown and Alan Simpson, filed suit in the High Court in Belfast against the
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), alleging that, to cover up a conspiracy, the PSNI obstructed their investigation into the murder in violation of the
European Convention on Human Rights. The lawsuit alleged that a senior RUC official told Simpson, who headed the investigation, not to get "too deeply involved in this one." Simpson further alleged that a senior Special Branch official who told Simpson during the investigation that he knew nothing, was revealed by the De Silva report to actually have been privy to significant information.
Independent public inquiry In February 2019, the
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled in agreement with the Finucane family, finding unanimously that the UK had failed to uphold article 2 of the
European convention on human rights, which among other things obliges signatories to adequately investigate state-caused deaths. On 12 October 2020, the
Northern Ireland Secretary,
Brandon Lewis, committed to reach a decision on or before 30 November 2020 on whether a public inquiry would be held into the murder. The
British Labour Party urged the UK Government to "act without delay" in the setting up of "an independent public inquiry". On 26 November 2020, 24 members of the
United States Congress urged the government of
Boris Johnson to set up a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane. Both
Republicans and
Democrats accused the UK government of 'breach of faith' in the case. Four days later, Lewis rejected calls for a public inquiry, citing ongoing PSNI and police ombudsman's reviews, despite the Chief Constable of the PSNI insisting that no new evidence had come to light. Mr. Lewis stated that "now is not the time" for a public inquiry, potentially leaving the door open for an inquiry in future. Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the
Alliance Party and the
Green Party sent a joint letter to Lewis, calling his decision an insult to Finucane's family. On 11 September 2024,
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn announced that an independent public inquiry would be ordered under the
Inquiries Act 2005 into the murder of Pat Finucane, due to the "exceptional reason" that several previous UK governments had committed to holding such an inquiry into his death. Although the announcement was welcomed by
civil rights groups, the decision was criticised by some, such as the
Democratic Unionist Party leader
Gavin Robinson, who said that it "perpetuates a hierarchy and sends the message that this murder was more deserving of investigation than others". ==Legacy==