David Cameron apologizes over Pat Finucane murder

British Prime Minister David Cameron has issued an apology to the family of murdered Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane Wednesday and has agreed that there was "collusion" between police officers, soldiers, and his killers.

Cameron launched the De Silva report into the lawyer's 1989 murder. The De Silva report, which was published Wednesday, found that RUC officers not only passed information to Finucane's killers, they also failed to stop his murder, and then obstructed the murder investigation, BBC News reports. British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons that depth of cooperation between the security forces and Finucane's "loyalist" killers was "unacceptable," The Guardian reports. He also accepted that the RUC special branch was responsible for "seriously obstructing" the investigation into Pat Finucane's murder. Cameron, however, denied that there was any "overarching conspiracy" to murder Mr. Finucane and Sir Desmond de Silva agreed. He concluded that "ministers may have been unaware" that there was any intention to murder Mr. Finucane. Finucane's widow, Geraldine, called the De Silva report a "sham," BBC News reports. She said the government had "engineered a suppression of the truth" behind her husband's murder. Pat Finucane was shot 14 times in front of his wife and children as they ate a Sunday meal in their Belfast home. His wife was also injured in the attack. On Wednesday, Amnesty International said the De Silva report had failed to give the Finucane family any sort of justice, The Guardian reports. "It is unacceptable and Amnesty, his family, and the public should not settle for anything less than the full and independent investigation that this case and Patrick's memory warrants," Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International's director in Northern Ireland, said. "The state has accepted that there was collusion in Patrick Finucane's killing. Those responsible must be held accountable. Prime Minister Cameron said he "respectfully disagreed" with Mr. Corrigan's statement demanding a full, independent, and public inquiry into Mr. Finucane's death, citing the harm it could do to the Bloody Sunday tribunal as one reason for his opposition to it. Patrick Finucane's son Michael said he believes the government is refusing demands for a full inquiry because "it does not want to be questioned in public," BBC News reports.