The inquiry into the loyalist paramilitary murder of Catholic lawyer Mr Pat Finucane will result in convictions, the man in charge of the investigationpredicted today.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said his long-awaited report into the brutal killing in November 1989 would do more than providerecommendations for the future.
"It is about active inquiries to arrest people responsible for criminal behaviour and I have little doubt that there will be further prosecutions andconvictions," he told a meeting of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York.
Mr Finucane was gunned down in front of his wife and family by UDA gunmen who burst into their north Belfast home. No one has been convicted of the murder.
Sir John's report on the role of British military intelligence and RUC Special Branch at the time of the murder was due out in November but has been delayeduntil the spring.
He said the hold-up was because crucial evidence was kept back from the investigation until the late stages but that investigators now had the material they needed.
Sir John also appealed to Mr Finucane's widow, Geraldine, to co-operate with the investigation into her husband's murder. Mrs Finucane and her family want a full independent inquiry into the killing.
PA