‘Monumental day’ for family of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane at public inquiry

Inquiry chairman Gary Hickinbottom described the killing of the prominent Belfast solicitor by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989 as a 'horrific murder which remains one of the most high-profile and controversial of Northern Ireland’s troubled past'. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

The widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has hailed the first day of a long-campaigned for public inquiry into his death as “monumental”.

The 39-year-old was shot dead at his family home in north Belfast in 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association in an attack found by a series of probes to have involved collusion with the British state. He was killed in front of his wife and three children, aged 17, 12 and eight.