Cory resists attempts to censor report

It’s understood the retired Canadian judge who is recommending the investigations is resisting attempts by London to omit key sections of his report, which concludes all four cases merit full public inquiries.
Peter Cory was commissioned by the Irish and British governments to review allegations of collusion between paramilitaries and the British army/RUC Special Branch (in Northern Ireland) and gardai and IRA (in the Republic).
The murder cases meriting inquiries are understood to be those of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane, Armagh solicitor Rosemary Nelson, loyalist Billy Wright, Robert Hamill, a Portadown Catholic beaten to death, and senior RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan.
The Finucane family is demanding the full publication of the Cory report, which, it’s understood, recommends inquiries with the power to compel witnesses and order the disclosure of security information.
Publication of the Cory report, originally scheduled for Dec. 1, has been delayed because the British authorities have sought significant removals from several sections.
The report has already been delayed once, because the British government didn’t want it published during the recent Assembly election campaign (fearing angry unionists would bolster the DUP vote).
Cory, who’s 77, has had access to a vast amount of material, including intelligence files and the full, so-far unpublished, report into collusion allegations carried out by Britain’s top policeman, Sir John Stevens.
Cory’s report is believed to have an even tougher line than the Stevens Report, which has already concluded British army/RUC collusion had cost innocent lives and that Stevens had been obstructed in his investigations.
One section of the Cory report concludes that a gun that the RUC gave one of its agents was later used in the 1992 massacre of five Catholics at a bookmaker’s and a 1991 shooting when a Catholic man was killed and a child lost an eye.
The Irish government has requested only minor textural changes to the Cory report, but reliable sources said he is angry and irritated by the British government’s response.
The judge is believed to have written his report in such a way that no government could argue that it compromised sensitive security information and he is therefore unhappy at the changes London wants to make to the published version.
Both governments have already agreed to be bound by the judge’s recommendations. He’s also believed to have suggested ways of controlling the costs of lawyers and speeding up the process.
Sinn Fein and the SDLP have both called for the full publication of the Cory report and demanded that the British and Irish governments move on his recommendations without delay.
“The two governments must accept the recommendations of the Cory reports and convene inquiries,” said the SDLP chairman, Alex Attwood. “The inquiries must be international, public and independent, with full powers to call witnesses and papers.”
The Derry-based center for human rights named after Pat Finucane has, meanwhile, criticized the media and unionist silence after a spate of recent sectarian attacks.
The Pat Finucane Center contrasted the media focus on possible dissident republican attacks with that on actual loyalist attacks. The PFC said that last Tuesday, a 21-year-old Catholic, James McMahon, was buried after being beaten near his home.
Sinn F