The head of an inquiry into the 1989 killing Belfast solicitor Mr Pat Finucane said today his team was investigating "new strands of evidence" that will delay findings due next month.
London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, who in April 1999 reopened the investigation into MrFinucane's killing, said his team still had "substantial interviews" to conduct and other lines of inquiries to pursue.
"There are new strands of evidence that I am determined to pursue," Mr Stevens told Britain's ITV network. "I didn't want to put forward a report next month that was not absolutely full."
MrStevens, who called the case "the most complex...inquiry in the history of British criminal investigation", did not detail the new evidence or say when the report might now be issued.
Mr Finucane was shot dead at his home while eating dinner with his family in a killing claimed by the Ulster Freedom Fighters - a cover name used by the province's largest Protestant paramilitary grouping, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
Allegations that the RUCand members of British army intelligence had foreknowledge of the murder, but did nothing to prevent it and failed to follow up on leads, have made the case one of the most controversial in Northern Ireland's sectarian conflict.