State Employed terrists go free

Belfast solicitor and civil rights lawyer and activist Pat Finucane, who regularly was involved in legally representingmembers of the IRA was murdered in 1989. He was shot 14 times in front of his wife and 3 young children after 2 masked men burst into his north Belfast home.

Barrett, a former special branch informer, was jailed for 22 years in 2004 for Finucane's murder. He was released in May last year under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, after a ruling by the sentences review commission, despite alleged (ie. non public) opposition by the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain.

William Stobie, an RUC informer and former UDA quartermaster admitted supplying the guns used in the killing. He was charged with aiding and abetting the murder but walked free after the court case against him collapsed. A few weeks later, Stobie was shot dead by loyalists in December 2001, apparently because they feared he would give evidence against them over the killing.

Former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens into alleged collusion during the late 1980s and early 1990s in that of 2003, he found that rogue elements within the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British army intelligence helped loyalist paramilitaries to murder Catholics.

The report called Stevens III identified the role of the army's surveillance operations in Northern Ireland. THis was focussed on the ultra secretive Force Research Unit (FRU) (latterly Force Reconaissance Unit). Nine former members of the unit, including its former head Brigadier Gordon Kerr, (now said to be in Iraq running the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) - see pic in his full mess fig of Gordon Highlanders) were questioned, as well as seven police officers and one civilian.

No members of the security services will be charged following the long investigation into the murder of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, prosecutors revealed today.

Today the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said that, critically, there was not enough evidence to bring prosecutions. In a statement, the PPS cited missing records, problems of time elapsing, the death of potential witnesses and the difficulties of ascertaining "the role and responsibilities that individuals played in specific events".

The statement added: "In addition, the prosecution had to take account of potential abuse of process arguments by the defence that any trial at this stage would be unfair."

So the State Employed terrists get away with it again, and again ...and again.