Finucane rejects ‘sham’ of new British inquiry

THE son of the murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane said yesterday that his family would refuse to participate into a new British Government inquiry into his death because it was a sham.

Michael Finucane, a solicitor based in Dublin, told the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs that new legislation introduced to facilitate the inquiry would give the right to British government ministers - and not the inquiry judges - to determine what evidence and witnesses could, and could not, be made available to the inquiry.

In an outspoken criticism of the new Inquiries Act, he said that the Northern Secretary Peter Hain had confirmed to him this week that the British Government would have the powers to restrict the evidence available to the inquiry or decide that evidence be heard in camera.