In addition to the murders of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, Northern Ireland’s Troubles have resulted in the deaths of eight members of the legal profession. The IRA and INLA long considered judges in particular to be so-called "legitimate targets." Over the years, both groups succeeded in murdering Lord Chief Justice Gibson, two other judges, four magistrates and an official in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The pattern following these murders has been much the same as that all too evident in the murders of Finucane and Nelson: no convictions.
But there is a crucial difference between the killings of Finucane and Nelson and those of the others. All were murders, but in the case of Finucane, who was killed 10 years ago, there has long been the suspicion that those who conspired to kill him were not confined to the ranks of illegal paramilitary organizations. Not surprisingly, that same suspicion immediately attached itself to the Nelson murder last March 15.
In the case of Finucane, British Home Office Minister Douglas Hogg told the House of Commons three weeks before Finucane was gunned down in his home by the UDA that there were lawyers in Northern Ireland who were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA." Hogg’s careless words added fuel to the fires of belief that Finucane’s murder was somehow sanctioned from somewhere within the police, security and intelligence apparatus operating in Northern Ireland at that time.
The abject failure of that same combined apparatus to bring anyone to justice in the Finucane murder has only added to those suspicions in the intervening years. The Nelson murder, to many, seems like a carbon copy of the Finucane assassination. Small wonder that the same calls for a full independent inquiry, with a possible international dimension, have arisen so quickly after Nelson’s death. All too many reasonable individuals and groups — ranging from human-rights and Irish-American activist organizations to the Irish government, a United Nations special rapporteur and members of Congress — are concerned that the Nelson murder investigation will simply replicate the failure of the Finucane investigation.
It is open to debate as to whether an inquiry should focus on the Finucane and Nelson murders simultaneously, or separately. Perhaps there is cause for hope that the Nelson investigation, still in its early stages, can do better than the stalled effort to uncover the killers of Pat Finucane. But one thing is certain: nobody is prepared to wait 10 years for no result in the Nelson investigation.
Quite simply, if there is nothing to hide, then the RUC and British intelligence have nothing to fear. If there is something to hide, the families of the dead, and the rest of the world, have a right to know about it. Simple justice demands nothing less.