Law Society forced to support inquiry calls
The Law Society, the body which represents solicitors in the Six
Counties, has been forced to support calls for independent inquiries
into the killings of solicitors Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson.
At an extraordinary AGM in Belfast on Tuesday, 11 May, the Society
voted by the narrow margin of nine votes to support demands for for
an independent inquiry into the 1989 killing of Pat Finucane and the
killing of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson in March of this year.
However a resolution calling for the ruling council of the Society to
resign over its earlier refusal to back independent investigations
into the killings was overwhelmingly defeated.
Said Barra McGrory, a Belfast based solicitor: ``I am of the view that
the majority of solicitors wish the circumstances of the Finucane and
Nelson murders to be cleared up.''
The Law Society vote comes in the week when former RUC boss John
Herman added to the controversy over the Finucane killing when he
told the right-wing Daily Telegraph that Pat Finucane was,
``associated with the IRA''.
Herman's comments met with a storm of reaction from the Finucane
family and Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin's Justice spokesperson, Bairbre de Brún, described Herman's
comments as ``a pathetic attempt to deflect attention away from the
allegations that the RUC colluded with loyalist death squads in the
killing.
``Herman presided over the RUC during the shoot-to-kill operations and
was named by outside investigating officers as an obstacle to
uncovering the truth. Clearly his latest remarks are designed to make
the task of uncovering the truth into the killing of Pat Finucane
more difficult.''
Finucane's family criticised the former RUC boss and are calling on
him to state publicly if he (Herman) briefed British Home Office
minister Douglas Hogg who said in a House of Commons statement a
month before the Finucane killing that some, ``solicitors in the North
were unduly sympathetic to the IRA's cause.'' In a further smear from
another of Herman's ilk on Tuesday, 11 May, Ulster Unionist MP Ken
Maginnis, speaking on Today FM's The Last Word programme, asserted
that Pat Finucane was in the IRA.
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