[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS 
                       ATTORNEY PATRICK FINUCANE

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 16, 2013

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on 
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International 
Organizations held a hearing to assess progress on the unfulfilled 
British commitment--broken commitment, unless the British Government 
reverses course--in the Finucane collusion case, and how this affects 
the peace process in Northern Ireland.
   In connection with the Good Friday peace agreement, the British 
Government promised to conduct public inquiries into the Finucane and 
three other cases where government collusion in a paramilitary murder 
was suspected. Subsequently the British government backtracked in 
regard to the Finucane case--the 1989 murder of human rights lawyer 
Patrick Finucane. The British backtracking came despite the 
recommendation to hold an inquiry, which, again, the British Government 
agreed to abide by, of the internationally respected jurist and former 
Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory in 2004.
   I'd like to thank Judge Cory again, who testified about his 
recommendation, at a congressional hearing which I chaired in May of 
2004. That is now nine years ago--and we are all still trying to get 
the British government to live up to its commitment. The Finucane 
family has testified at many hearings--Geraldine, Patrick's widow, and 
his son John, his son Michael, who testified yesterday--going back 
sixteen years. And of course there have been many others--and all of 
these witnesses, advocates, and experts have advocated a full, 
independent, and public judicial inquiry into the police collusion with 
loyalist paramilitaries responsible for brutally murdering Pat 
Finucane.
   Over these years the dedicated human rights activists and experts 
have established much of what happened, and, after facts have been 
established, the British Government has acknowledged many of them. In 
2011 the British Government admitted that it did collude in the 
Finucane murder and apologized for it.
   Much of the credit for this admission goes to the many of you who 
have done the work on all the reports that documented collusion, until 
it was pointless for the British Government to continue denying it.
   So that is progress. But the work is not done because the British 
Government has reserved one final, yet massive injustice: it continues 
to protect those responsible for the murder of Pat Finucane. Prime 
Minister Cameron told the Finucane family that the government would not 
conduct the promised public inquiry into the collusion.
   The deliberate decision not to proceed with a public inquiry is a 
glaring, public breach of faith. It is the source of enormous 
frustration to Patrick Finucane's family and friends. It resonates 
throughout Northern Ireland, calling into question the British 
Government's commitment to peace and reconciliation.
   This is particularly sad because the British Government has taken so 
many other positive, truly honorable steps, many of which were painful 
for large sectors of British public and official opinion--such as the 
Bloody Sunday inquiry, released in 2010. To call all that into question 
by reneging on the promised Finucane inquiry is a tragedy.
   Most recently, in December 2012, Sir Desmond De Silva released a new 
report on collusion in the Finucane murder--really a review of existing 
case files rather than the gathering of new evidence that the promised 
inquiry would produce. The De Silva report detailed what Prime Minister 
Cameron admitted were ``shocking'' levels of state collusion in the 
murder, including that it was RUC officers who proposed the killing of 
Finucane, passed information to his killers, and obstructed the 
investigation, and that British domestic security had intelligence of 
the murder threats months before the actual crime yet took no steps to 
protect him.
   It is admirable that Prime the Minister has admitted collusion and 
apologized for it, but it is really too much to admit a government 
crime and then to say it will not be investigated--particularly when 
the government has undertaken a commitment to do so. The question asks 
itself--after so many positive steps, is the British Government really 
going to diminish the good it's done since 1998 in order to protect the 
identity of people who share responsibility for a murder?
   I'm sure Congress will continue to maintain a strong voice on this 
case, which goes to the core of human rights and rule of law.

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