'Security forces colluded with loyalists in lawyer's murder'

British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries to murder a Belfast lawyer, the head of Northern Ireland’s Human Rights Commission said today.

Speaking in Dublin, Professor Brice Dickson said he was ‘‘sufficiently convinced’’ that security forces plotted with loyalists to kill Pat Finucane.

At the very least, he said, the collusion went as far as the failure to bring the killers to justice.

He said the case was just part of a ‘‘very nasty can of worms’’ regarding the handling of police informers in Northern Ireland.

Last month’s report by Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan was just some indication of unexposed ‘‘horrors’’ in this area, he said.

In his speech today he added to calls from Mr Finucane’s family yesterday for an independent judicial inquiry into the killing, saying existing plans for an international judge to investigate the death as one of six incidents would not ‘‘go far enough’’.

Human rights lawyer Mr Finucane was shot dead outside his home nearly 13 years ago in retaliation for his representation of nationalists in the North.

Former Ulster Defence Association quartermaster William Stobie was tried for conspiracy to murder him, but the case collapsed at the end of last year when a key witness was deemed medically unfit to give evidence.

Last month Stobie was shot dead outside his Belfast home by his former loyalist comrades who branded him a ‘‘traitor’’ for speaking about them.

Today Mr Dickson told the conference at Dublin Castle: ‘‘To date we have been sufficiently convinced by the quantity and quality of the evidence available to us that there has been collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British security forces in the murder of Patrick Finucane - or at the very least in the failure to bring people to book for the killing.

‘‘We have therefore added our names to the long list of those who are calling for a public judicial inquiry into Mr Finucane’s murder.’’

He added: ‘‘I do not think the inquiry called for by the UK and Irish Governments in the Weston Park document of August 2001 will go far enough to allay our concerns on that case.’’

One of the first incidents investigated by the commission was the 1999 death of human rights solicitor Rosemary Nelson.

The conference - organised by human rights group Front Line - heard yesterday from her sister Bernadette McQuillan, who again said the family believed there was collusion between British security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries to kill her.

But Mr Dickson told the conference today: ‘‘In the case of Rosemary Nelson the commission has still not seen enough evidence of collusion to be able to add its name to those calling for a public inquiry.’’

The commission would keep the issue under review, he added, and a meeting would be held next month over the affair.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, had been involved in the examination of the work of Special Branch officers in handling police informants in the North, Prof Dickson said.

‘‘I firmly believe that there is a very nasty can of worms to be opened as far as that particular kind of activity is concerned,’’ he said.

‘‘The recent report by the Police Ombudsman Mrs Nuala O’Loan, regarding the police investigation into the Omagh bombing in 1998 is some indication of what horrors may still need to be uncovered,’’ he added.