Leaked US cables could throw fresh light on the level of state collusion in the 1989 murder of Belfast civil rights lawyer
Pat Finucane, the Northern Ireland civil rights lawyer killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989. Photograph: Reuters
"Some Americans might decry Julian Assange as some kind of anarchist – someone who should be locked up for a thousand years," reflects Michael Finucane, a 39-year-old Dublin-based solicitor. "But all WikiLeaks is doing is filling the vacuum created by governments unnecessarily."
Readers who know the Finucane name will understand the significance of those words. Michael is the son of Pat Finucane, the murdered civil rights lawyer. In 1989 Douglas Hogg, then junior home office minister, told the House of Commons some solicitors in Northern Ireland were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA". Michael Finucane has described these words as "a verbal hand grenade lobbed into the cauldron of Northern Ireland".
Michael, then 17, was in the house with his brother and sister. Two decades later, the Finucane family is still trying to find out why their father was targeted and whether the government was involved in the killing. They continue to call for a full and independent public inquiry.
The WikiLeaks revelations have shone further light on the degree of state collusion. The Guardian reported last month that the leaked US embassy cables revealed Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minister, told US diplomats "everyone knows the UK was involved" in the murder and that US diplomats feared "elements of the security-legal establishments" in Britain were fighting to resist an inquiry....read more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/17/wikileaks-pat-finucane-inquiry
