[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INVESTIGATION
OF THE MURDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS
ATTORNEY PATRICK FINUCANE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 15, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-59
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Michael Finucane, son of slain human rights attorney Patrick
Finucane....................................................... 5
Brigadier General James P. Cullen, USA, Retired, human rights
attorney....................................................... 19
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Michael Finucane: Prepared statement......................... 10
Brigadier General James P. Cullen, USA, Retired: Prepared
statement...................................................... 23
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 40
Hearing minutes.................................................. 41
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations:
Submission by Jane Winter, former director of British Irish
Rights Watch................................................. 42
Patrick Finucane: The Fight for Justice........................ 50
Statement on the publication of the De Silva Report into the
murder of Pat Finucane....................................... 54
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE
INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER OF
HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY PATRICK FINUCANE
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning to everyone.
I would like to extend a special welcome to our witnesses
and everyone joining us here today. I do see many old and close
friends in the room today, and I want to welcome you to this
hearing.
Our purpose today is to assess progress on the unfulfilled
British commitment, a broken commitment, unless the British
Government reverses its current course, in the Pat Finucane
collusion case and how this affects the peace process in
Northern Ireland.
In connection with the Good Friday 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.
At this point, I would like to thank Judge Cory again, who
testified about his recommendation at a congressional hearing
that I chaired in May 2004. That is now 9 years ago, and we are
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-Michael Finucane,
who is testifying today, first testified before Congress on
this in 1997 in a hearing before this subcommittee, so that is
now 16 years ago. 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 Patrick Finucane.
Over these years, the dedicated human rights activists and
experts have established much of what has 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, the hard 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 Patrick 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 the 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,
reconciliation, and, above all, justice. This is particularly
sad because the British Government has taken so many other
positive truly honorable steps, many of them more painful for
large sectors of the British public and public opinion, such as
the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, released in 2010. To call of that
into question by reneging on the promised Finucane inquiry is a
tragedy. It is a preventable tragedy, however.
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 a 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. Let me repeat that: 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, obstructed the
investigation, and that British domestic security and
intelligence knew of the murder threats months before the
actual crime, yet took no steps to protect him.
It is admirable that the Prime Minister has admitted
collusion and apologized for it, but it is really too much to
admit a government crime and then 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 has
done since 1998 in order to protect the identity of people who
share responsibility for a brutal murder?
At this moment, I would like to say that I will be asking
Members of Congress to sign a letter to the Prime Minister
urging him to conduct the promised inquiry. Many Members of
Congress have repeatedly called for this, including the passage
of two of my congressional resolutions, H. Res. 740 in the
109th Congress and H. Con. Res. 20 in the 110th Congress.
I now would like to yield to my friend, Mr. Weber, for any
comments that he might have.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your holding this hearing. In the interest of
time, I am going to limit my remarks and say let's get going.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. I would like to yield to my friend and
colleague, Richard Neal.
Mr. Neal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for using your
committee assignment to keep this issue in front of the
American people. I have, as you know, for decades pursued many
of these cases, a reminder today of how we have been vindicated
in many of these instances: Guilford, Birmingham, Joe Doherty,
the deportees, and, of course, Bloody Sunday.
For those that question the efforts that many of us have
made over these years, I would remind all of a conversation I
had with those families when Prime Minister Cameron took to the
floor of Commons and apologized for what had happened on Bloody
Sunday. I talked to those families within hours of that
apology. The joy that overcame them, the tears with which they
greeted me on the phone, indicating that but for America's
interest many of those cases perhaps would not have been
brought to light, those families knew full well that none of
their loved ones had been involved in triggering the events of
Bloody Sunday, as was the case with the other examples I have
already noted.
I have known the Finucane family for a long, long period of
time, and Geraldine Finucane deserves the full inquiry that was
once promised by the British Government. I have spoken with
various British Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and other
senior officials for many years. A full inquiry would bring
about justice. And let me also say so do the families of
Rosemary Nelson, Raymond McCord, Robert Hamill, and Billy
Wright.
We note today that there has been great progress, as I
heard from you on the way in. Various British Prime Ministers
have certainly changed the tone of the conversation over these
years, and indeed, we should all be very grateful. But much of
the incentive came from the American people, who demanded that
these inquiries be fully accepted and introduced.
But the Finucane family deserves more than an apology. They
deserve the full and independent inquiry that was promised
earlier by Prime Minister Blair and what we thought was going
to be a position adopted by Prime Minister Cameron. Recent
evidence indicates that this inquiry is needed now more than
ever. Prime Minister Cameron and many of his advisers have
recently disclosed correspondence that certainly makes clear
what should be taking place. Jeremy Heywood has described the
killing as ``far worse than anything alleged in Iraq or
Afghanistan.''
And I have offered a letter that I know my colleagues will
sign urging Prime Minister Cameron to hold a full inquiry that
was once promised.
We know there was collusion in this case. Now we have to
find out who was responsible. The changes that we have all had
a chance to witness in these ``it will never happen moments''
have been extraordinary, but much of that impetus has come from
Members of the United States Congress as we have pursued these
inquiries. These were sectarian, brutal assassinations, and in
particular, the Finucane case is in my mind one of the most
egregious, largely because of the manner in which it was
undertaken, in full view of his family on a quiet day, when all
security forces and members of the RUC at the time were removed
so that this assassination could take place.
And I appreciate the fact, Mr. Chairman, that you have used
again your committee assignment to keep this matter in full
view of the American people.
I am currently co-chairing a get-together at the Ways and
Means Select Committee on Revenue, so I departed there to get
over here.
And I did want to thank two of my friends here from the
Finucane family and General Cullen, who has been a great, great
advocate on our behalf all of these years.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Neal, thank you very much for joining us. I
thank you for your fine work over these many years.
Mr. Crowley.
Mr. Crowley. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this
hearing. You have been a stalwart wall and someone who has not
let rhetoric get in the way of justice on so many issues, but
particularly on this particular issue. I have had my own
experience, many years of following this case, in particular. I
know it is also an issue that Mr. Neal has dedicated a great
deal of time to as well. So this has been very, very
bipartisan.
What happened to the Finucane family is something that
never should have happened. It wasn't right then, and it is not
right to cover up what took place now. The fact is we are here
today because of unfulfilled promises by the British
Government. The British Government committed to a full and
independent inquiry into cases of collusion, but that promise
was not and has not been kept. This is a problem for many
people, including those of us who supported wholeheartedly the
Good Friday Agreement.
I am very much a believer in the Agreement. I have praised
all parties for taking risks to make that agreement a reality,
and that included and does include the British Government. That
was a landmark agreement because it was one that has worked,
and I want to do everything possible to protect the agreement
and keep the peace.
I believe there can be no turning back from the Good Friday
Agreement, although there are many who would like to do just
that. Part of that, however, is honoring the commitments of
Good Friday as well as the follow-up agreements at Weston Park
and elsewhere. When the British Government committed at Weston
Park to carry out a full inquiry, we believed that they meant
it. They shouldn't back away from it now.
I don't have real questions today for the panel. I am here
for the Finucane family, and I am here in the search of
justice. I agree that Prime Minister Cameron needs to call for
a thorough, full, and independent inquiry into the murder of
Patrick Finucane. Nothing short of that will be acceptable to
people who are seeking justice in the North of Ireland and,
quite frankly, around the world.
So, Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for your dedication
to this particular issue, and to the ranking member as well,
thank you for inviting me to be here. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Crowley, thank you very much for your
statement, for your leadership over these many years.
As you pointed out, this is an issue on which there is
total bipartisanship and agreement that this is a matter of
justice, and justice delayed is justice denied, but my deepest
concern is justice delayed in perpetuity is an outrage.
Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding today's
hearing on the recent developments in the murder of human
rights lawyer Patrick Finucane.
I understand that you and a number of our colleagues have
continued to advocate for greater accountability and a sincere
public apology in the days and years after Mr. Finucane's
death. I hope that today's hearing increases awareness among
our colleagues and leads to a truthful accounting of that fatal
evening.
To Mr. Finucane, let me over my deep appreciation to your
commitment to participate in this hearing and to your tireless
efforts to keep the memory of your father alive and in the
public eye. Your courage and strength are apparent, and you
make your family and the memory of father proud.
I yield back my time.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bass.
I would like to now introduce our two very distinguished
witnesses. First, we will hear from Michael Finucane, the son
of Patrick Finucane. Michael was there, along was his mom and
two siblings, and I would note parenthetically, we all know his
mom Geraldine was wounded in that horrific attack when
assassins entered the Finucane home and took his father's life.
Today Michael is a solicitor in Dublin with his own legal
practice. He has been deeply involved in the Finucane family's
efforts to secure the full independent public judicial inquiry
that was promised in 2001 by the British Government.
We are grateful for your presence here today, Michael, to
tell us about where we are in the quest for justice in your
father's case, which of course has a direct impact on the quest
for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
We will then hear from Brigadier General, retired, Jim
Cullen of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate's General Corps.
In addition to his military career and career in private
law practice, Mr. Cullen has been involved for many years with
human rights groups focusing on Northern Ireland, including the
Brehon Law Society of New York of which he served as the first
president.
Welcome to you, General.
Mr. Finucane.
STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL FINUCANE, SON OF SLAIN HUMAN RIGHTS
ATTORNEY PATRICK FINUCANE
Mr. Finucane. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to you and to all
members of the committee and Members of Congress who have
supported my family this many years. I have submitted a longer
statement, which I ask be read into the record, but I am going
to make a shorter statement for the purposes of this hearing.
As is now a matter of public record throughout the world,
Pat Finucane, my father, was a lawyer practicing in Northern
Ireland during the period of civil conflict. He specialized in
criminal defense law and developed particular expertise in
defending people charged with offenses under the emergency
laws. As a result of his innovative approach to his work and
the successes that flowed from it, he became a target for
Loyalist paramilitary elements who perceived him as partisan
and an enemy of the British State. This much has been known for
some time as a result of incidents that took place during Pat's
lifetime and some of the evidence that has been revealed since
his murder.
We now know that this perception of Pat Finucane as being
sympathetic to his client's beliefs and even that he engaged in
unlawful activity on their behalf was fostered actively by the
British Security Service, MI5, encouraged by the Royal Ulster
Constabulary's Special Branch and known about by the British
Army's undercover unit, the Force Research Unit. These agencies
of state sought to besmirch Pat's name and professional
reputation, to encourage support for the claim that he was a
member of the Provisional IRA or working on their behalf and to
encourage the notion that he should be assassinated.
We know beyond any doubt that all of these agencies were
aware that Pat's life was in serious danger on at least three
occasions before he was murdered, but they decide not to warn
him. We know this and much else besides as a result of the
review recently conducted by Sir Desmond de Silva, Q.C., who
was appointed by the British Government in 2011. It is this
review that provides the impetus for this hearing, although the
work of de Silva is not what was originally promised.
A comprehensive mechanism was promised by the British
Government to investigate the case of Pat Finucane, but it has
not yet been delivered. The case was supposed to be the subject
of a public judicial inquiry, but the British Government has
declined to establish one, despite agreeing to do so during
negotiations as part of the Northern Ireland peace process in
2001.
In the 24 years since the murder, my family and I have
campaigned relentlessly for a public judicial inquiry into the
circumstances. In the earliest years, we were met with denial
and refusal by the government and were told that accusations of
collusion between the state and Loyalist paramilitaries in the
murder were without foundation.
For example, in January 1993, the Northern Ireland Office
went so far as to write in response to a draft report prepared
by the U.S. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights that their
analysis ``scarcely justifies your conclusion that there is
sufficient evidence of the Security Forces' prior knowledge of
the murder plot and encouragement of it to justify an
independent public inquiry.'' They went on to say, ``The
shortcomings of the draft report are such that in its present
form it is not capable of being constructively amended.'' The
RUC responded similarly by saying, ``A particularly serious
disservice is done to the agencies responsible for the
administration of justice and law enforcement.''
It is now clear that these responses from the various
agencies, police, intelligence, government, and army, were
nothing less than blatant lies. The State was clearly culpable
in the murder of Pat Finucane. Documentary evidence exists to
prove this. The State simply could not afford to admit to its
involvement in a crime as heinous as the murder of one of its
own citizens who was at the same time an officer of its own
courts.
We now know this so definitively, partly as a result of the
review carried out by Sir Desmond de Silva and the material he
caused to be published and the work of many others. It is clear
now that the British State agencies knew Pat Finucane was a
target for many years before he was killed but decided not to
do anything to warn or protect him.
Although Pat was murdered in 1989, his life had clearly
been in serious danger as far back as 1981. Various agencies
were aware of the threat, including the police, the
intelligence services and British Army Intelligence. Documents
have been published to reveal meetings took place to discuss
the threat against his life and an official decision was taken
not to warn him that a murder attempt was imminent on more than
one occasion because it would have exposed an informant to an
unacceptable level of risk.
These are just some of the facts behind the murder of Pat
Finucane. Until now, they have not come to light. But the
strength of suspicion over the case, a suspicion that was
proven to be completely justified, despite official denials,
demands a comprehensive response.
In the absence of any other appropriate mechanism, a public
judicial inquiry became the demand my family made. It was
resisted for many years until, in 2001, during peace
negotiations the British and Irish Governments agreed to
establish an inquiry into the case if an independent judge of
international standing recommended that there should be one.
That judge was former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Peter Cory. He recommended a public inquiry in 2004, following
the publication of a lengthy and comprehensive report. Thus
began a long process of delay and further denial by the
government, as faced with the honoring of their promise of an
inquiry they welched.
Much time passed, but then, in 2011, a decision was taken
by the current government as the manner in which Britain would
finally address the case of Patrick Finucane. It would not be
through the mechanism of a public inquiry, despite the earlier
promise so hold one. Instead, a review of the papers in the
case would take place and a government-appointed lawyer would
be installed to scrutinize official documents and produce a
report. My family would not be permitted and was not permitted
to see any of these documents prior to publication nor would we
be allowed to hear witnesses called to give evidence or ask any
questions. In short, we would be allowed to do nothing more
than accept the findings of the reviewer without be able to
assess any of the evidence for ourselves.
My family was invited to 10 Downing Street in October 2011
to be told that this review process was to be established. We
had been in discussions, which we had entered into in good
faith, with the government for over a year prior to this visit.
When we were invited by the Prime Minister to come to Downing
Street we expected to be told that the commitment given
previously would be honored and that a public judicial inquiry
would be established without further delay.
We had always known that the promises of the government
should not be regarded as gospel. However, we dared to believe
in the possibility that with the onset of peace in Ireland, the
British Government might make good on its commitment. Not only
were we proved wrong in this, we were forced to endure a
process of public embarrassment that was cruel and unnecessary.
It has been long believed that the issue of British State
collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries was a deep-rooted and
officially sanctioned policy of selecting targets based on
their degree of opposition to the state. The more troublesome
the individual, the more likely the state was to deploy its
killers by proxy to erase the problem.
If the report of de Silva has any value at all, it is to be
found in the extent to which it confirms beyond any doubt that
this was the approach of the British State in Northern Ireland,
certainly throughout the 1980s and possibly beyond. A lawyer
like Pat Finucane, who was much too effective at his job for
the State's liking, would make himself a target for reprisal.
The extent of collusion was therefore such that the State could
kill anyone it wanted to with complete and absolute
deniability. This was the policy of collusion, a modern Irish
holocaust. The one question that has not yet been answered is,
how much perished as a result of it? Certainly, Pat Finucane
was not the only victim.
Perhaps the most succinct description of the case to emerge
in recent years was contained in a letter written by a senior
British Security Advisor to the current Prime Minister David
Cameron. This has only just been made public as a result of
court proceedings, and it was written July 2011. The advisor
said, ``Even by Northern Ireland standards, the facts are
grisly. Moreover, in terms of allegations of British State
`collusion' with Loyalist paramilitaries, this is the big one .
. . exhaustive previous examinations have laid bare some
uncomfortable truths. Paid agents were directly involved in the
killing, including the only man ever convicted of involvement
in it . . . of Lord [John] Stevens' conclusions paint a picture
of a system of agent running by the RUC's Special Branch and
the [British] Army's Force Research Unit that was out of
control.'' He went on to say, ``Some of the evidence available
only internally could be read to suggest that within government
at a high level this systematic problem with Loyalist agents
was known, but nothing was done about it. It's also potentially
the case that credible suspicions of agent involvement in Mr.
Finucane's murder were made known at senior levels after it and
nothing was done; the agents remained in place.'' He concluded
in a follow-up letter by saying, ``This was an awful case and
as bad as it gets and was far worse than any post-9/11
allegation.''
This is the summary of a security advisor from within the
British establishment. The contents of his letters were not
public until a recent court hearing in Belfast brought them to
light. We have had to resort to litigation against the
government in order to force them to reveal information of this
nature and to establish the public inquiry we were promised. We
should not have to do this. We should be reading the material
in the context of a public inquiry, the one that was promised
in 2001 and the one that has been required since 1989.
On behalf of my family, Mr. Chairman, I ask for the support
of this committee, the support of the House and all of
Congress, to use its influence and to persuade the British
Government to honor its longstanding promise to establish a
public judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Finucane follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Mr. Finucane, thank you very much for your
extraordinary work over these many years on behalf of your
father and that of your entire family. Not only are you seeking
justice for an individual brutally slain, assassinated right in
front of your own eyes, but this is also a very important
symbol for peace, reconciliation, and, above all, justice. You
have done an incredible credit to your father's memory and your
other family members as well for keeping this front and center
before the world. So thank you so much.
General Cullen.
STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES P. CULLEN, USA, RETIRED,
HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY
General Cullen. Thank you, Chairman Smith and also members
of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to appear before you
today. My name is Jim Cullen. As the chairman mentioned, I am a
retired Brigadier General of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate
General's Corps and last served as Chief Judge IMA of the U.S.
Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
I first met Pat Finucane when he came to the United States
to serve as an expert witness in a political asylum case, and I
just wanted to mention today my interaction with one of the men
involved in the murder of Pat Finucane.
An interested group in New York put an ad in the Belfast
Telegraph, the main Unionist newspaper, offering a reward for
information about Pat's murder. To my surprise and their
surprise, we received a call within a day after the reward
notice was posted. And we arranged to meet the following
weekend in a hotel outside of Dundalk near the border in
Northern Ireland with the person who was represented to be part
of the team that killed Pat.
When we met, the person who called me introduced me to
William Stobie, otherwise known as Billy. There was a
preliminary discussion about the confidentiality of the meeting
and the terms of the reward, and I explained to them that we
were not after information about the Loyalist killers
themselves. We had fairly good indications about who they were.
Rather, we had received information from the UK that the murder
had been commissioned by two upper level officers in the Police
Special Branch, and it was information about them that we
sought.
Mr. Stobie went on to speak to me for about 2 hours. He
very credibly said at the outset that he would not have been
trusted with information about the Special Branch, even though
he knew that the terms of our reward offer was dependent upon
that information. He explained that he had been recruited by
the UDA, one of the Loyalist death squads, to be their armorer
and quartermaster in a section of Belfast.
He had served in the British Army for about 6 years and he
had been trained as an armorer, that is a person who is trained
to fix light weapons. He had run up a debt in a Loyalist
drinking club, and they gave him a choice: He could either
become their armorer and safeguard and store their weapons, and
the other alternative wasn't so pleasant.
Now, not long after he was recruited by the UDA, he
participated in the murder in 1987 of an innocent young
Protestant student, Brian Lambert, who was mistaken for a
Catholic. Soon after that murder, he was approached by the
Special Branch and recruited to be their agent with the
understanding that nothing would happen to him for Brian
Lambert's murder. A co-actor in the murder was prosecuted.
Stobie was told about 2 years later, on or about February
6, 1989, to have two pistols ready to deliver for an operation
the following Sunday. He said the UDA told him that the target
was a ``top Provo'' living in north Belfast, but he was not
told the identity of the target.
He said he called his Special Branch handlers the very same
day and related what he had been instructed to do by the UDA,
including the location of where he was to deliver the weapons
the following Sunday morning. He later contacted his Special
Branch handlers in the week following, he thinks on Wednesday,
and they confirmed that he was to go ahead as instructed by the
UDA.
The following Sunday morning, he went to a Loyalist
drinking club quite early in the morning, and as he pulled up,
he noticed parked across the street from the entrance to the
drinking club an unmarked car, in which sat one of his
handlers, and there was another man in the car whom he didn't
recognize. He went into the club and turned over two pistols to
the hit team near the exit of the club. He emerged from the
club, went to his car. He was followed out by the hit team. He
waited until they left, and he followed them out. And then he
noticed something quite strange. Instead of the unmarked police
vehicle following the hit squad, they made a U-turn and went in
the opposite direction.
He went home. And then he had the radio on later that
evening, and he heard about the murder of Pat Finucane. He knew
immediately who had been the target for the operation for which
he had been instructed to provide the weapons.
Stobie was contacted by the UDA on the following Tuesday
after the murder, and he was told to dispose of the weapons in
accordance with some instructions he was given. He picked up
the two weapons where they had been left for him. He called the
Special Branch and told his handlers that he had the hot
Browning, he misidentified it as a Heckler 9 millimeter, which
was the principal weapon used in the murder.
The Special Branch told him to follow the UDA's
instructions, and they sent an unmarked Land Rover to meet him.
He and the Special Branch man drove to the Ardoyne area and
were followed by a helicopter--he didn't know whether it was
army or police helicopter--who were watching the vehicle as it
proceeded. When they arrived, Stobie gave the weapons to a man
he called David Anderson.
Stobie told me that he realized the UDA began to suspect he
was an informer, and then, in 1992, he was shot several times.
Inconveniently for the UDA, the Special Branch and the army, he
survived. He was visited in the hospital by a UDA boss who told
him it had all been a mistake. Well, Stobie had sufficient
street smarts to know that it hadn't been a mistake, and he
decided he needed to acquire an unconventional life insurance
policy. So he approached a newspaper reporter, told him his
story with the expectation that the reporter wouldn't say
anything. But after he told his story, this particular reporter
told him he had just accepted a position as the chief press
officer of the Northern Ireland office. So Stobie then realized
he needed a backup insurance policy, and he went to a second
reporter, again related the story with the understanding that
nothing was to be disclosed unless Stobie gave permission or
unless something happened to Stobie.
He then let it be known to some of his UDA acquaintances
that he had made ``arrangements'' in case anything happened to
him, and he thought he would be okay. It was that second
reporter who contacted me in response to the reward notice.
Thereafter, the police planted two pistols in his mother's
home. He realized that he was, to use his term, being stitched
up or framed to get him out of the way. He also realized that
if that effort wasn't successful, he was likely to again be a
target because Lord Stevens had begun his third inquiry in May
1999, and Stobie quite rightly figured that the Special Branch,
the army intelligence unit known as the FRU, and the UDA saw
him as a weak link. He did have a drinking problem, and they
figured if an investigation began, he might talk. So Lord
Stevens did confirm in his 2003 report that he did identify
Stobie as a person of interest very early on in his
investigation.
Stobie saw our reward as an opportunity for him, his wife
and his mother to start a new life in Canada, and that is why
he wanted to talk to us. When I told him we could only pay the
reward if we had the information about the Special Branch
handlers, I suggested to him that if he knew somebody else who
was involved who would have that knowledge, we would pay the
reward. We didn't care how they whacked it up among themselves.
I gave him $2,000. I gave it to his attorney in his presence as
a good faith demonstration that we were prepared to pay the
money, as we were.
Stobie was later arrested as a result of evidence gathered
by the Stevens inquiry, but the case against him collapsed in
November 2001 when a key witness, that first reporter, claimed
that he couldn't testify because of problems in his own mental
state. And I can just imagine what those problems were.
Then on December 12, 2001, Stobie was murdered by the UDA.
They were successful this time. And this was after he had made
it known that he would be willing to testify in an inquiry into
Pat Finucane's murder. He stated that he would not name the
Loyalists involved, but he was prepared to name the police
handlers or at least their code names because he didn't know
even the real name of his own handler.
In a statement made by a masked paramilitary after his
killing, it was claimed by the paramilitary, ``Billy Stobie
could have stayed on the Shankhill and been left alone had he
not spoken out on Ulster television and backed the public
inquiry into Pat Finucane's killing.'' Clearly, it was the
Police Special Branch and the Army Force Research Unit who were
really worried about the possible impact of Stobie's
disclosures. The prior knowledge of the Special Branch and the
FRU about the murder together with the unquestioned
coordination of those two branches, because you cannot run
multiple intelligence operations in the same theater without
having coordination at the top--there is going to be turf wars;
there are going to be issues over who controls what
intelligence assets. So we know that the head of Special Branch
and the head of Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland were
members of a so-called Task Coordinating Group. They in turn
reported to the Joint Intelligence Committee in London. These
kind of operations just didn't happen by some cowboy being out
of control. It was coordinated.
Today, we are faced with the situation in which faceless
securocrats and their political protectors have successfully
neutered of the rule of law in Northern Ireland and have sadly
intimidated the current political leadership in the UK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of committee.
[The prepared statement of General Cullen follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. General, thank you very much for your very
extensive work and testimony today. It is greatly appreciated
by this subcommittee.
I have a couple of questions I would like to start off
with. You know, there is no statute of limitation, as we all
know, on murder cases. Even in cases of Medgar Evers' murder
and the Birmingham girls that were firebombed, causing four
girls to lose their lives, they were reopened, retried years
later due to continued investigation. I would note
parenthetically that Evers was murdered in front of his family
in a way that is very similar to and parallel to Patrick
Finucane's murder.
So this, it seems to me, is a very disturbing bit of
unfinished business. The public inquiry certainly would bring a
great deal of scrutiny and light to something that has suffered
nothing but shadows and an occasional breakthrough. And it does
beg the question as to why the coverup? Who are they
protecting, as I think all of us are concerned about?
My question to both of you would be in Judge Cory's report
on Patrick Finucane's murder, he asserted that without public
scrutiny, this is a quote, ``doubts based solely on myth and
suspicion will linger long, fester and spread their malignant
infection throughout the Northern Ireland community.'' Do you
agree with his assessment, and is this ongoing coverup harming
the British Government's credibility?
Mr. Finucane. Yes, I would agree with the assessment. Judge
Cory concluded, as he did and others who have looked at the
case, reached the conclusion that not only was the murder of my
father as a result of the work that he was doing and the
successes that he had, but also it was meant as a warning to
other lawyers that if they attempted to replicate his successes
or employ the same techniques or seek the same successes in the
courts that he sought and achieved, then they might meet the
same fate.
Not only did it represent an attack on the rule of law and
the position of lawyers as defenders of their clients, but it
also compromised the ability of people to achieve their right
to an effective legal defense because lawyers had to now
consider, defense lawyers for the first time now had to
consider whether they would be putting themselves and their
families at risk by accepting work that was politically
unpopular.
My father was prepared to do this. My mother I think said
it best in the immediate aftermath of the murder that Pat was a
professional to such an extent that he would have represented
the people who shot him, so fervently did he believe in the
rule of law and the value of maintaining a commitment to the
rule of law, even in the face of civil conflict. So I think the
murder definitely had that dimension to it at the time.
The ongoing effect of the killing, the surrounding
circumstances, the evidence that has come to light and the
broken promise given by the British Government at Weston Park
is to elevate the case to a highly iconic status that is
capable of being abused as a propaganda tool by people who
might seek to continue the conflict. I do believe and fear that
that is a risk.
And it is also damaging to the British Government, because
quite simply, they didn't keep their word, and if a government
is seen as not being capable of keeping its word or acting
honorably, then it doesn't deserve to be a government.
It is clear from some of the information that has come to
light as a result of the recent litigation in Belfast that the
decision not to hold a public inquiry by the Cameron
administration was one hotly debated within the Civil Service.
So even within the British establishment, the danger of going
back on their word, of breaking the commitment, of welching on
the promise given in Weston Park, was recognized and
understood, and many British civil servants, including the
Cabinet Secretary at the time, argued against it and expressed
a lot of surprise that the Prime Minister was going down this
road.
Mr. Smith. General?
General Cullen. One of the surprises to me after witnessing
that the Prime Minister went ahead in publicly addressing the
Saville Inquiry--and I had occasion to speak to the Secretary
of State of Northern Ireland about our experience with the My
Lai Massacre, in which I represented the chaplain in the Peers
Commission inquiry after the massacre, and how it was necessary
to redeem ourselves as an institution, and I am talking
military at that time. We had to reveal what went wrong,
withhold nothing, and then entrust the American people to place
their trust back in us again by coming clean on what went wrong
and trying to make the institutional fixes.
I suggested to them, and I am not suggesting for a moment
that my input played any role in the Secretary of State's view,
but they did take that approach with the Saville Inquiry and
the Prime Minister was applauded in the Guild Hall Square of
Derry when he made the announcement acknowledging
responsibility.
I thought that he was heading toward that same kind of a
conclusion in having an inquiry. I had suspected for years that
there was deliberate delay until Mrs. Thatcher passed away or
was not able to appear before an inquiry because it was her
practice on occasion to sit in on the Joint Intelligence
Committee, which had overall supervisory responsibility for the
work of the Task Coordinating Group that ran things in Northern
Ireland. That was a group made up of senior military and police
officials.
But I realize now that I was wrong in my assessment. I
don't think it was Mrs. Thatcher at all. I think it was the
security people at the top end, MI5 and MI6, and the remnants
of Special Branch that continue in the police today who, for
whatever means that were at their disposal, whether it was some
version of Mr. Hoover's infamous private file cabinet or for
some other reason, were able to effectively block what I think
Mr. Cameron was prepared to do but couldn't do.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Finucane, in your written testimony, you say the review
conducted by Desmond de Silva reveals a great of information
for the first time, but it is nowhere near being a complete
answer. It is based on a reading of documents without any
questioning of the authors. Indeed, only 11 witnesses were
spoken to by de Silva, and 12 written submissions were
received. No former politicians were interviewed, nor were a
number of key intelligence personnel, including the former head
of military intelligence in Northern Ireland, who was in charge
at the time of your father's murder.
Then you point out, as if this is not bad enough, on the
day that the de Silva report was published, Tom King, now Lord
King, led the public response on behalf of the government. He
was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 1989 when
your father was murdered.
You go on to say, not surprisingly, he rejected calls for a
public inquiry, claiming that the matter had now been fully
investigated. It is difficult to conceive, you go on to say, of
someone with greater conflict of interest than the former
Secretary for Northern Ireland in 1989. The dangerous suspicion
that lingers around his defense of the government's position is
that those responsible for the policy of collusion remain in
positions of significant influence and will continue to get
away with it. As a key witness at any potential inquiry held,
Lord King's rejections of the calls for an inquiry merely add
insult to injury.
That is a very, very powerful statement. I know after the
de Silva report, there were some in the Labor Party who
suggested that there ought to be a public inquiry. Mind you,
between 2003 and 2010, during both the Blair and Brown
governments, they refused a public inquiry, but they may be
seeing things a bit differently. I am wondering if you might
want to further elaborate on that statement, because it doesn't
get any more powerful than that, and your thought as to whether
or not there might be a reevaluation going on in the House of
Commons.
Mr. Finucane. The position of the opposition in the House
of Commons led by Ed Miliband is that an inquiry will be
established if they are returned to government. The difficulty
that arose when Labor was in power between 2003 and 2010 was
the enactment of legislation that limited the manner in which
inquiries would be carried out. Ministers would have control
over the information that appeared before the inquiry and in
public, and that control would be an absolute discretion, not
subject to input from any of the parties, and would limit the
ability of the inquiry to explore important issues publicly.
Mr. Smith. If I could interrupt, so are the Labor MPs
suggesting that law would not be applicable in this case? I,
too, read that law and thought it was unconscionable that the
ability to veto information from becoming public would lay in
the hands of the very people who would have the potential
conflict of interest.
Mr. Finucane. Well, that was indeed the fear. However,
since the passing of that law, the Inquiries Act of 2005, and a
precedent has developed since in relation to a case that arose
from circumstances in Iraq where the Inquiries Act was not
implemented in full for that particular inquiry in the case of
a man called Baha Mousa who was killed by British soldiers, but
instead the decision as to what material would be withheld and
what material would be disclosed was left to the inquiry
chairperson and only the chairperson, and that allowed an
opportunity for representations to be made in public and some
measure of debate to be had as to what information the public
would see. It would not be taking place in a minister's office
in the way originally envisaged under the terms of the act.
That precedent was the one we wanted the government to
follow. That was the one we were discussing with them for about
a year between 2010 and 2011, when the Cameron-Clegg
administration took part. We expected when we went to Downing
Street to be told that this precedent was going to be followed
because, if for no other reason, we were not asking for
something to be created for our case; we were simply asking
them to give us the same as they had given somebody else. But
that obviously was refused.
The position of the opposition, as I say, is that they will
establish an inquiry; they will live up to the promise of
Weston Park. But until that happens, we have to endure this U-
turn by the Cameron administration. And as if that wasn't bad
enough, on the day the de Silva report was released, I had to
experience walking past Tom King in the BBC in London as he
went into one studio saying I am satisfied no inquiry is
necessary now, the matter has been fully investigated, and I
went into another studio saying, well, it hasn't been
investigated, and the man in the studio next door is someone I
would really like to ask a few questions of.
This is just another example of how much damage is being
done to the government's credibility as a result of both its
decision and its choice of spokesperson. I can't think of
anything more insulting than the person who was in charge at
the time, who was getting briefings from the Force Research,
Unit, who met some of the people in charge, who was aware of
the extent of intelligence available to the State, and yet is
able to get away without having to answer for his actions while
in office.
He said that he would have been available to the de Silva
review if they had asked to speak to him, but it appears they
did not. In fact, they didn't ask to speak to any politicians.
And it seems to me that is a glaring void in the process that
de Silva was asked to undertake and underlines the need for a
public inquiry, because there are people who should be spoken
to and should be questioned, who simply have not been up until
now. And we really have to start doing that before more time
passes and those people become unavailable.
Mr. Smith. You referenced the impact that your father's
assassination had on other defense attorneys. I would just note
that, on September 29, 1998, 15 years ago, a little under 15
years ago, sitting right where you sit, and where General
Cullen sits, we had Rosemary Nelson tell her story, especially
the death threats that she had received from the RUC, and
within a year, 6 months really, she had been assassinated with
collusion all over the place. So killing defense attorneys,
human rights defenders like your father, had an impact. I am
sure there are many attorneys who thought they might do this
very noble work, who decided to take a different path because
of what had happened to your dad and then what happened to
Rosemary Nelson.
So this committee, I can assure you, will stay focused
until and when the British Government does the right thing, as
they have promised to do, and that is to conduct a public
inquiry, and they do need to hold people who allegedly have
committed collusion to account in a proceeding that will bring
justice, even at this late date.
I would like to yield to vice chairman of the subcommittee,
Mr. Weber.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To you, Michael, and to your mom, I want to say my deepest
condolences.
Of course, I am newly elected, so I am kind of getting up
to speed here. And so a lot of the things you are discussing
and you are testifying to I am not as knowledgeable about as
our chairman here, who has done a fine job of keeping up and
trying to keep the pressure on.
But I have got some questions, so bear with me, if you
will. And let me see if I can get some answers.
You talked about the agreement, was it the West Park--the
Weston Park----
Mr. Finucane. Weston Park.
Mr. Weber. Weston Park. Tell me who made the agreement
and--tell me about that.
Mr. Finucane. The original Belfast peace agreement that set
out the broad structures to be put in place post-conflict were
agreed in 1998 and somewhat famously concluded on Good Friday,
1998. And but this was a framework document. It did not go into
detail in a number of key areas. At that time, there were a
number of quite fundamental structures of state and government
under discussion, including reform of the police, the
implementation of a new legislative assembly, and structures of
local government.
The Good Friday Agreement provided a blueprint for how that
would be put together. But, like most blueprints, it was very
broad in scope. And it became clear that further negotiations
would be required several years later as difficulties were
encountered.
Mr. Weber. Who was in power during that time?
Mr. Finucane. At that time, Tony Blair's government was in
Britain. And Bertie Ahern was the Prime Minister in Dublin. And
the subsequent--the negotiations subsequent to the Belfast
agreement of 1998 were--took place in a location called Weston
Park, and they happened in 2001. And a number of issues were
discussed, including policing, local justice issues, the
legislative assembly that would be set up, and so forth.
Mr. Weber. Including the assassination of your father.
Mr. Finucane. Yes. And certain cases had become
particularly prominent because of either suspicions of state
collusion or failures of investigation by the police,
allegations of police or army involvement, and so on and so
forth.
Mr. Weber. Well, let me spring from that if I could maybe
to General Cullen.
And, again, I am just trying to come up to speed and
catching these names and these events. You are describing a
situation where there is an informant who was ultimately
murdered. I think you said he had a drinking problem. So the
collusion that Michael is describing by government at the
highest levels here, there is going to be a circle, I am
assuming, somebody has come in and put together a potential
list of those who had knowledge or who were somehow either
complicit or involved. How wide is that circle? Is it ten
people? Five people? A hundred people?
General Cullen. I think the collusion that is probably
several hundreds of people. I would say a good part of the
Special Branch organization were involved. Certainly, the
military intelligence unit who was rebranded from time to time,
but at this particular point in history was innocuously called
the Force Research Unit. I think they were all involved. And
the question is, how far up the political chain to whom those
people reported did it go? That is one of the unanswered
questions.
Mr. Weber. Well, and my question is, so if there were
several hundred back then, because of attrition or, you know,
mortality or whatever, somehow that circle has narrowed.
General Cullen. It has narrowed through death, retirement.
We don't know how far it has been narrowed. The RUC, for
example, the police were both downsized and rebranded. Now, the
hope was, and we have gone through this in our own history,
after a conflict, we have a reduction in force or a RIF. And we
use those occasions, certainly post-Vietnam, to eliminate
people who are not at the highest level of the ratings. So you
get rid of a lot of problems that way. We were told that the
government simply would not do that. They offered significant
cash packages to people in the police if they wanted to retire
in order to reduce the number down. But, unfortunately, what
happened I think is some of the more capable and ambitious
people saw lives beyond the police. They could take this cash
package and go do what private enterprises want. Some of the
bad apples I think stayed.
Mr. Weber. Well, I think you used the term ``remnants'' in
some of your earlier remarks.
General Cullen. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Well, so how many--without giving me names, how
many--if you could interview five or ten people, do you have a
short list?
General Cullen. Oh, I would have a short list, certainly,
Congressman.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And how short is that short list?
General Cullen. Of the people still around, I would say it
is probably 5 to 10 very, very key people who were in prime
positions of authority then.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So working--and you made the comments that
you I think helped in the My Lai Massacre; you represented the
chaplain, I think.
General Cullen. The division chaplain, that is right.
Mr. Weber. Well, the division chaplain. Okay. And you made
the comment that said you felt at the time, for the American
public, what needed to be done was all the truth needed to be
out as to what went wrong.
General Cullen. Precisely.
Mr. Weber. And so for the American public to finally feel
at peace, I guess--I don't want to put words in your mouth--but
to accept and to feel like progress was being made, justice was
served, that you had to come clean, so to speak.
General Cullen. Exactly.
Mr. Weber. What impetus does the British Government have at
this point to come clean?
General Cullen. I think the--the biggest thing that drives
or should drive any government is to gain or to regain the
confidence of its people and especially any disenfranchised
elements in its society. That would describe a significant
portion of Northern Ireland, who, during the course of the
conflict, realized that the justice system was not administered
fairly. The police system did not protect people in an
equitable manner.
There has been huge progress made since that time. And
certainly even in the worst days of the conflict, there were
heros in the police. A sergeant, Detective Sergeant Johnson
Brown, who was one of the ones who did key work in
investigating the murder of Pat Finucane, said at one point he
feared far more the Special Branch, his own police people in
the political branch, than he ever feared the IRA. And he
acquired a key confession at one point that the Special Branch
then tampered with, removing a part of the tape on which that
confession was kept. So there were--the ordinary people----
Mr. Weber. I am assuming he is not still around.
General Cullen. He is retired now, sir. And his partner had
a mental breakdown because of the threats and the stress which
he was under. He has recovered, I understand. But there were
wonderful people like that who at least allowed ordinary folks
to say, hey, there are some good cops there who want to do
their job.
Mr. Weber. Right.
General Cullen. But then they were painfully aware, as
ordinary people were painfully aware, there were cops who
didn't want to do their job.
Mr. Weber. So as a committee, as the House of
Representatives, what can we do? This is probably not the right
term, to tighten the screws, to bring a heightened awareness to
help, what can we do from across the big pond to help make that
a bit more of a--I don't know what the right word is--a
priority? What do you think we can do?
General Cullen. You have a tremendous moral voice,
Congressman. You are listened to across the water. And what you
in effect can do is empower the politicians who want to do the
right thing, who want to regain the confidence of the people in
England, in Northern Ireland, in all parts of the UK, to say to
the securocrats, who are resisting a public inquiry, you must
hold this public inquiry. One of the problems Michael just
spoke about is there is always a danger that those who didn't
want to sign onto this peace agreement, who for their own
reasons would want to see this collapse, on both sides, take
oxygen from the failure to have this public inquiry. We have to
cut off that oxygen.
Mr. Weber. One final question, Mr. Chairman, then I yield
back, and thank you for your indulgence.
Is there a window of time closing? Because obviously with
mortality rates and attrition, whatever, 1 year? 3 years? 5
years? I mean, the sooner the better, obviously. The chairman
said it, eloquently justice delayed is justice denied. What
kind of a time frame are we on?
General Cullen. That is a tough question. I would say
anybody in my age range who would have been around at that time
is looking at his own mortality tables, and you begin to
wonder. Stobie was murdered; Brian Nelson, a key actor, died
under very mysterious circumstances. Other people have
disappeared. The time is taking its toll on the justice system.
And we may get to a point where even if the government were
under a new government or this government in the UK decided to
do the right thing, it may be too late.
Mr. Weber. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Finucane. Could I just add one thing? Mr. Weber asked
what could Congress do. By making this an issue that continues
to be of concern to Congress and perhaps communicating that
where you can but particularly to the White House, the
continued contact that takes place between the administration
here and that in Britain and the notion that Pat Finucane is
always going to be a subject of conversation until the issue is
resolved is the greatest moral force you can bring to bear,
perhaps starting with a letter that the chairman is circulating
for Members' consideration and signature.
And then why not the G8 summit? That is happening in
Northern Ireland in the very short future. It may not be an
issue that touches on every world leader's agenda, but
certainly the British and Irish--or the British and American
premiers will be there. It should be a conversation happening
between the President and the Prime Minister because it is
important, and it is an unresolved issue. And amidst all the
problems that people are trying to sort out in Northern Ireland
in 2013, problems with unemployment and so on and so forth,
they have got this historical problem, a hangover from the bad
old days, that is not going away but could be made to go away
if the British Government would simply do what it promised to
do.
So I think that is a real practical step that Congress can
take. And it may yield great fruit.
Mr. Weber. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chairman.
I think Mr. Weber makes a very good point about, you know,
this could lead to a cold case, and by design, it could lead to
a cold case. All the more reason why we need to continue our
vigilance and our very energetic efforts so that it does not
happen. But eventually, the truth does come out, over time. But
it ought to come out in a way that is actionable, particularly
with potential prosecutions, and certainly public inquiry will
finally lay out the information.
So can you tell me, Michael, more about the ongoing
litigation in which you and your family are seeking a court
order to the British Government requiring it to conduct the
inquiry it committed to in 2001? Where is the litigation now
and how is that proceeding?
Mr. Finucane. Proceedings were instituted after the
decision of the British to appoint Desmond de Silva.
Mr. Smith. In what court, what venue?
Mr. Finucane. In the Belfast High Court.
The case essentially seeks an order of certiorari quashing
the decision by the government not to hold an inquiry and an
order of mandamus requiring them to establish one.
The proceedings were instituted not long after de Silva was
appointed to carry out his review. We initially gave some
consideration to seeking a restraining order to stop de Silva
from carrying out his work. But it was felt that de Silva might
conceivably disclose material that could be helpful even though
the process could never satisfy the requirements of a public
examination. So the main proceedings have simply continued, and
there has been the usual back and forth that you find in
litigation between the government and our lawyers. But most
recently, some interim hearings have taken place, where we have
sought discovery of documents relating to the case, including
previously classified intelligence documents dealing with the--
dealing with the murder at the time itself. And a lot of those
were revealed. Some of them were already public in one form or
another, so they were collated during the course of the
proceedings. But the government sought to withhold certain
internal communications between security advisers and the Prime
Minister. And the letter that I referred to in my testimony
came to light only in April of this year. And the contents of
it and the expressions of serious concern about the
circumstances of the case and its comparison with events that
have transpired post-9/11 and to Iraq and Afghanistan and how
it compares on the scale with those.
The hearing took place in April. The judge hearing the case
decided he would review the documents himself. And so the
government was ordered to supply whatever it wanted to hold
back so that the judge would review them and make his decision.
As I understand it, he has received those documents, and we are
awaiting a date for his ruling.
After that, it will proceed to a full hearing on the
merits, where we hope we will achieve the orders that we are
seeking.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, the testimony of Jane Winter,
Former Director of British Irish Rights Watch will be made part
of the record. Your full statements as well will be made part
of the record. A submission from the Government of the Republic
of Ireland will also be made part of the record. And they do in
their testimony say quite emphatically, ``The Irish Government
will continue to seek a public inquiry into the murder of Pat
Finucane as committed to in the agreements.''
In her statement, Jane Winter points out that ``the de
Silva report missed three crucial aspects in the case. One, he
has misunderstood the guidance available on agent handling and
its adverse impact on the detection and prevention of a crime.
He has omitted to investigate the fact that British Army
intelligence tampered with evidence, and he underplays the role
of the intelligence service in the case.'' Would either of you
like to comment on that?
Mr. Finucane. I think in general terms de Silva is
unsatisfactory because he lays too much blame at the door of
defunct organizations, like the RUC, or individuals who are
dead or no longer available. And that is--that is very
unsatisfactory and, in our view, inaccurate. There are--there
are people he could have spoken to but didn't. And there are
conclusions that could have been reached, but he chose not to
do so, even within the terms of his very limited mandate. And I
think the extent to which he was prepared to conclude that
something didn't happen because he could not see clear evidence
of it is very unsatisfactory and glosses over the obvious
technique of putting together various pieces of evidence and
forming a reasonable conclusion based on them.
And he also chose to reject the evidence of some people who
were involved in the intelligence services who said they saw
documents and additional materials that were no longer in
existence, but they were quite clear did exist at one time,
including targeting information and information about my
father's personal habits that was gained as a result of
surveillance, surveillance which we suspect was carried out
either by the police or the army. And the unwillingness to
reach those conclusions and frustration with the process
itself, that it is not public, that you can't ask questions of
the people involved, that you can't assess all of the evidence
and all of the documents for yourself, leaves de Silva in a
very unsatisfactory condition insofar as the mechanism is
concerned. And it is something of a starting point, but I don't
really think it can be seen as anything more than that, and it
is certainly not a finished exercise.
Mr. Smith. Jane Winter makes the point in her statement
that the report, the only real value it has, in her opinion, is
that it confirms collusion, vindicates Patrick Finucane, and it
in itself makes a compelling case for a public inquiry. One of
the findings in the de Silva report that she amplifies in her
statement is that he has confirmed that 85 percent of the UDA's
intelligence came from security forces. She also points out
that he has shed light on the briefings given to a government
minister prior to the murder; 85 percent of intelligence coming
from security forces. If that isn't damning, I don't know what
is.
General.
General Cullen. Well, it goes back to the point I was
making before: When you have intelligence operations from
different entities in the same theater, you have to have
coordination at the top. And given the 85 percent number, which
I read also, it did confirm to me that it was more than simple
idle chat at the top; there was active coordination in not only
Pat Finucane's murder but in the murder of other innocent
people.
Mr. Smith. We have one final question, and then if you
would like to make any concluding remarks.
What effect do you think the inquiry, according to the
terms committed to in 2001, would have on the peace process in
Northern Ireland?
Mr. Finucane. I think--I think the final establishment of
an effective, comprehensive, public judicial inquiry would
address what has become the last great historical issue for the
British Government in the Northern Ireland conflict, certainly
the most substantial one remaining unaddressed. And there has
been a great deal of improvement in investigative mechanisms
locally. Inquests have been improved in terms of their capacity
to examine killings in Northern Ireland. And there are
controversial cases that have not been resolved. There are
still campaigns by interest groups and relatives for a proper
examination of the deaths of their loved ones. But they don't
have to go for a public inquiry anymore because the domestic
mechanisms, the local mechanisms have been improved and
strengthened.
We are left with a public inquiry because so many state
agencies are involved that no other mechanism seems capable of
addressing the issues. And we are becoming, if you like,
somewhat isolated in that category because we are the last
remnants of the cases I highlighted at Weston Park that
required a public tribunal of inquiry type of mechanism. And
that is really not good.
This hearing, I know, is receiving a lot of attention in
Ireland and Britain. It is an issue that when matters come to
light it dominates the news headlines. When we were in London
in 2012 for the release of the de Silva report and were in the
House of Commons, the case was front page news. Anyone saying
this has gone away or this is becoming less important or the
people feel less strongly about it is clearly wrong. And that
has to erode confidence in the rule of law in Ireland. And what
obviously--well, perhaps not obviously, but I do believe the
opposite is true. If the British can finally grasp the nettle
in this one case, in the case of Pat Finucane above all others
and really come clean and explain what went on and make the
witnesses available and reveal the documents and just get it in
all gone in one go finally, I think the boost to confidence
would be immeasurable. Because I think the feeling of people on
the ground is quite simple: They can't bring themselves to
admit it, even now. And it is hard to argue with that when you
see the evidence in the case and the broken commitments. And I
really think the commitments need to be lived up to. And I
think the benefits, the potential benefits are very real, and
they are there for all to see.
General Cullen. We had tragic examples in our own country
back in the 1960s, where civil rights workers were murdered,
and there was often collusion by local policemen. But we had
the FBI. We had Federal courts. We had this Congress to
investigate and set things straight and say that there is a
rule of law and it is going to apply to everyone. That is not
the case in Northern Ireland while there is a refusal of the
government to have this promised inquiry. We are ultimately
talking about a government who colluded in the murder of one of
its own citizens and now refuses to reveal the extent of that
collusion, who sanctioned it from above. Until there is a
willingness to address this in a credible way, I am afraid
there will not be the restoration of confidence in the rule of
law and in the government itself. And it will give dissident
factions on all sides an opportunity to say, how can you trust
this government? If you have got connections with the top, you
can do anything you want. There is no accountability. That is
unsafe for any government. We don't want to see that happen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
This committee, as you know, walks point on human rights.
It is vested with the responsibility for the Foreign Affairs
Committee and, by extension, the full House of Representatives
to bring the light and scrutiny to human rights abuses anywhere
and everywhere they occur and to hopefully craft legislation
that meets the needs of those who are victimized.
I can assure you, both of you, and, Michael, you as a son
who has carried on your father's tradition as a solicitor and
has done so with great class and courage, that we will not rest
until the public inquiry occurs, and we well do all within
the--and I say this in a bipartisan way because there are
people on both sides of the aisle who feel as passionately as I
do, that justice delayed is justice denied, as I said earlier,
and there needs to be a public inquiry and it needs to be done
now. And we will keep bringing our voice as a committee and
individually as an individual Members of Congress to bear until
that day occurs.
If you would like to make any final--although what you just
said was a wonderful concluding statement--but if you have
anything further you would like to say before we conclude.
Mr. Finucane. No. Other than to thank you again, Chairman,
and the committee members for your time and your support, I
don't have anything further to add.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
General Cullen. I would just like to join in Michael's
thanks for your hospitality and your willingness to hear us
today.
Mr. Smith. Thank you so much. The hearing is adjourned, and
we will be convening momentarily to proceed to a markup of
three pieces of legislation. But this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Christopher H.
Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and
chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights,
and International Organizations