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Public inquiry into 1989 killing of Belfast lawyer
The Guardian
|September 12, 2024
The government has ordered an independent public inquiry into the 1989 murder of the Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane, one of the most controversial killings of the Troubles.
The Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn, made the announcement yesterday after decades of campaigning by Finucane's family, who say the full extent of state complicity in the crime was covered up.
Loyalist gunmen burst into the lawyer's home on 12 February 1989 and shot him times in front of his wife and children.
It later emerged that Brian Nelson, a paramilitary intelligence officer responsible for directing Ulster Defence Association (UDA) attacks, was an agent controlled by the force research unit of the British army.
Yesterday, Benn told the House of Commons: "It is very hard for any of us to understand fully the trauma of those who lost loved ones - sons and daughters, spouses and partners, fathers and mothers - and what they have been through."
This story is from the September 12, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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