Alison Morris

the identities of all of those involved and how they were involved, and if the murder could have been prevented.

Pat Finucane's family, including his son, Sinn Féin MP John Finucane, have long fought for an inquiry into the case to be opened.

I'm joined by our security correspondent, Alison Morris.

Alison Morris, you're very welcome to the Belltel.

Pat Finucane, this is a murder which continues to deeply haunt many people here.

It happened in February 1989.

I can never remember certainly in my journalistic career or indeed my adult life that this wasn't a massive story.

It obviously begins, or does it begin with the murder of Pat Finucane or does it go further back than that?

It's said he was regarded as a thorn in the flesh of the security forces due to his activities in representing people suspected of IRA activities.

Indeed, other Republicans he had, there's a host of people he said to have represented, including former hunger striker Pat McGeown, after he was charged with the IRA killing of two army corporals, successfully defended him.

And as you said, his city centre practice was only one of a handful of firms which specialised in

in these sort of cases.

He had been regarded with suspicion by the security forces and indeed by unionists perhaps to this day since his brother John, who died in a car accident in 1972, had been claimed by the IRA as one of their members.

And because of this unpopularity in police and military circles, and this was well known, that even within days of his murder, there were these allegations made that the loyalist gunmen who killed him had been assisted by intelligence personnel indeed, and that there was what we would call collusion.

This was from the beginning.

Pat Finucane was murdered on the 12th of February 1989 after UDA gunmen broke into his house with a sledgehammer as the family were eating dinner.

He was killed in front of his wife and three children.

That shocked a lot of people.

He was shot 14 times, twice in the body and then the other 12 rounds into his face at close range.

Frenzied attack, if you want to put it like that.