The Finucane case includes a host of names from what has been dubbed the dirty war, in the North, writes Dan Keenan., Northern News Editor
The murder of Mr Pat Finucane by the UDA as his family gathered for Sunday lunch in February 1989 stands as one of the most notorious of the Troubles.
It was alleged after the killing that his loyalist killers were acting on implicit directions from within the security forces who claimed that the solicitor was in some way the brains behind the IRA.
Sir John Stevens, the chief of London's Metropolitan police who has been investigating collusion for the last 14 years, has found that security force elements were involved in his killing.
Sir John has made public a 19-page summary of the 3,000-word report which he has handed over to Mr Hugh Orde, the PSNI Chief Constable and his one-time deputy who had day-to-day control of the Stevens investigation. Sir John found there had been collusion which he identified as: "The failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence and - the extreme - of security force agents being involved in murder."
The report went on: "These serious acts and omissions have meant that innocent people were murdered or seriously injured."
In a key passage, Sir John reported: "For many years we have known the killers of Patrick Finucane. The challenge, quite frankly, has been to bring them to justice and our inquiries are continuing."
It was known that Sir John based this claim on intelligence rather than hard evidence.
The Finucane case now includes a host of names from what has been dubbed "the dirty war" involving the paramilitaries and the various intelligence agencies operating in Northern Ireland.Vital information needed for the murder of Mr Finucane at his north Belfast home was said to have been passed on by Brian Nelson.
He was a senior UDA figure who was recruited by the British army's Force Research Unit (FRU) which was its intelligence operation.
It was run during the 1980s under the leadership of Brig Gordon Kerr who later was promoted and became Britain's military attache to Beijing.
He too has been sought for interview by Stevens's detectives in connection with Finucane.
In an attempt, it was claimed, to direct loyalist killers to "proper" targets and away from innocent Catholics, Nelson operated with army agents in identifying names on the UDA hitlist.
Nelson was jailed for conspiracy to murder in 1992 and released nine years later. He died of a brain haemorrhage last month.
Also involved was William Stobie, a former UDA quarter master said to have supplied the murder weapon in the Finucane case.
Stobie was also a Special Branch informer. He was shot dead in December 2001, following which Ken Barrett fled to England to live under cover. Stevens claims that his inquiries have been persistently impeded by secretive elements within the former RUC and the British army. He further said that a fire at his office in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim was arson. "From day one, my inquiry team has been obstructed in its work," he reported.
"Obstruction that was cultural in its nature and widespread within parts of the \ army and the RUC. And here I talk about FRU in particular and RUC Special Branch in particular." Barrett's name gained new prominence last year following a covert recording of an interview he gave to the BBC investigative reporter John Ware.
Mr Barrett, a self-confessed paramilitary killer, told Panorama how the murder of Mr Finucane was facilitated by the security forces.