(by Greg Harkin, Sunday People)

The terrorists and security force members who set up and killed the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane can be revealed by the Sunday People for the first time today (Jun 16). In a move set to rock the Government our investigations have uncovered details which show that almost every single person involved in the planning and execution of the 1989 murder was either a member of the security forces or was working for a State agency.

The events which led to Mr Finucane's murder began early that year when the then RUC Chief Constable Sir Jack Hermon and two other senior officers gave a briefing to British Tory Home Office Minister Douglas Hogg in Belfast.

Hermon had claimed that solicitors working in Northern Ireland were helping known paramilitaries beat terror raps. It was a private briefing. And Hermon was furious when Hogg rose to speak in the House of Commons during a Prevention of Terrorism Act debate a few weeks later on January 17 to announce that some lawyers in Northern Ireland were 'unduly sympathetic to the IRA'.

Hogg was criticised by politicians and lawyers alike for his comments, but he had unwittingly started a chain of events which would lead to the murder of Mr Finucane.

Within hours UDA's west Belfast commander Tommy 'Tucker' Lyttle was meeting with his Special Branch handler. Despite his reign of terror in the city, Lyttle had continued to work for the security forces - an incredible scenario in any other western democracy.

Lyttle would later claim that his handler had discussed Hogg's comments and said to him: "Why don't you whack Finucane?"

The UDA's intelligence officer Brian Nelson, an agent of the army undercover unit the Force Research Unit, was summoned to Lyttle's home in Sydney Street West and told to prepare a file on the lawyer. When Nelson reported back to his handlers, rather than discourage him from taking on the operation FRU members actively encouraged him to go ahead and gave him every possible assistance.

They provided photographs and map details on Mr Finucane's home off the city's Antrim Road.

But even more alarmingly, two different handlers were involved in three separate reconnaissance missions at the Finucane family home.

One experienced FRU officer accompanied Nelson on two car trips to the street. Another officer, posing alongside Nelson as window cleaners, offered their 'services' to Mr Finucane's neighbour so they could check out the rear of their target's home.

By this stage it is inconceivable that neither senior RUC Special Branch officers nor senior members of the Army's undercover Force Research Unit did not know Pat Finucane was now a serious UDA target.

If they didn't there were at least two other agents involved in the conspiracy and murder. And the lawyer NEVER received any warnings.

One of those two agents was William Stobie the UDA quarter-master and Special Branch informer.

Before he was murdered last year by the UDA Stobie told me he didn't know who was being targeted on Sunday, February 12, 1989, the night of Pat Finucane's murder. But when he handed over weapons for a shooting that day he immediately called his handlers.

He claimed that they appeared to be uninterested in his information, but within minutes an Army helicopter was hovering above the Highfield estate where the weapons hand-over took place.

Within an hour Pat Finucane was shot dead as he ate Sunday dinner with his wife and children.

Stobie called his handlers again. The weapons were fitted with tracking devices prioer to the murder and perhaps the cops could catch the gunmen on their return?

Stobie told me that he believed the reason the hit team was not intercepted - either before or after the murder - was because one of the gunmen, Ken Barrett, was also working for the Special Branch. Sources say Barrett was actually helped by a senior Branch detective in planning the Finucane murder in the days before and perhaps on the day of the killing itself.

This senior detective, it is alleged, offered 'safe passage' in and out of the Antrim Road.

So when Barrett and his UFF terror colleague burst into the Finucane home, the lawyer didn't stand a chance.

He was shot 14 times and died instantly on the floor of his kitchen.

The solicitor hadn't been warned about the threats.

His killers were aided and abetted by members of the security forces.

And the investigation into his death was blocked by cover-up after cover-up.

Throughout the conspiracy and the murder of Pat Finucane members of the security forces and their agents were involved in the planning, targeting and execution of the killing.

But nothing was done about it.

It is also incredible that all those UDA members involved attended a 'celebration' party held in Lyttle's house after the murder. Nelson and Barrett were among the guests.

Tucker Lyttle was an intimidating character in loyalist west Belfast.

Just 11 months after the murder he phoned and asked me to visit him at his home off the Crumlin Road.

It was January 1990 and he said he wanted to give me a story - one that wasn't to be published until he gave the go-ahead. Brian Nelson, he said, was his intelligence officer and Lyttle knew he was a security force agent. Lyttle produced South African arms manuals and pointed to weapons Nelson had brought into Northern Ireland with the blessing of his handlers.

"We all have our police and army friends," said Lyttle at the time.

"I've got mine. But Brian's got the very best of friends."

He predicted Nelson's arrest and then said that 'there's something big going down' in relation to Pat Finucane.

The cops and the army wanted Finucane dead the previous year, he told me, and the UFF were 'happy to oblige'. Lyttle's purpose in calling me was simple. He wanted to issue a warning.

He expected to be arrested too, but said if he was charged in relation to the murder of Pat Finucane he would 'blow this whole thing wide open'. There was more to this than people thought, he said, and he knew exactly what had happened. We arranged to meet again though Lyttle said as I left his house: "If it's in the Crum (Crumlin Road prison) I'll arrange a pass."

A few days later Lyttle was arrested and charged with possessing information useful to terrorists. He was released on bail 13 days later and he was quick in arranging another meeting.

Nelson had been arrested, he said that Saturday evening at his Sydney Street West home, and I should report the fact that he was one of Britain's top agents inside the loyalist paramilitaries.

Lyttle repeated the arms plot allegations and the fact that Nelson - a security force agent paid to save lives - had set up the murder of one of Northern Ireland's most prominent lawyers.

Neither Nelson nor Lyttle were ever charged in relation to Pat Finucane's murder.

Nelson was jailed for ten years for a series of crimes including conspiracy to murder. Lyttle was also jailed - for seven years in his case - for numerous terrorist crimes including a plot to bomb targets in the Republic under the codename Operation Snowball.

On his release he was forced to appear before the UDA Inner Council where he admitted working for Special Branch.

But, he insisted afterwards, he escaped the ultimate penalty of death by persuading his former comrades that the Branch had helped him. He hadn't helped them.

Lyttle was allowed to move to Donaghadee where he died from a heart attack in October 1995 aged 56.

A former security force agent familiar with the Finucane case told Sunday People: "There were so many agents and informers involved in Pat Finucane's murder it is almost impossible not to draw the conclusion that senior security force members wanted him dead and allowed that murder to take place."

It has been claimed that Pat Finucane had smuggled a gun into the Crumlin Road prison in 1981 to aid an IRA escape.

This was part of a security force smear campaign against the lawyer. But Pat Finucane wasn't even in Northern Ireland at the time of the alleged incident. And the Stevens Inquiry report due out next month will dismiss the rumour and say Mr Finucane was an innocent civilian who had no links to the Provisional IRA.

This article appeared in the June 16, 2002 edition of the Sunday People.

HOME