Remember Rosemary Nelson?

Angelique Chrisafis:

The inquiry into the murder of the Northern Ireland solicitor Rosemary Nelson has been widened to consider whether the army or intelligence agencies were involved in her killing.

The inquiry, which begins next month led by the retired high court judge Sir Michael Morland, will now consider whether the government, police, army and other state agencies were in any way to blame for the car bomb attack which killed Ms Nelson or whether they facilitated her death or obstructed the investigation.

The solicitor, who had represented nationalist residents in Portadown's Garvaghy Road during the contentious Drumcree marching dispute, was killed outside her home in Lurgan, county Armagh, in March 1999 by a booby trap car bomb for which loyalists claimed responsibility.

Before her death it was alleged that members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary had threatened her life.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Paul Murphy, yesterday widened the scope of the inquiry after submissions by human rights campaigners. Jane Winter of British Irish Rights Watch said she had given Mr Murphy evidence suggesting that soldiers may have been involved in the murder.

The inquiry into Mrs Nelson's death is one of four tribunals recommended by the Canadian judge Peter Cory on controversial murders in Northern Ireland.

But the government came under renewed pressure this week over its attempts to pass a bill which would allow ministers to decide what can be heard in public in future inquiries. The inquiries bill will enable any inquiry to meet in large part in secret and will give government ministers powers to direct aspects of it.

Judge Cory's recommended inquiry into alleged collusion between security forces and loyalists in the murder of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 will not be set up until after the bill is passed, sparking criticism from the Finucane family of a "government controlled charade".

The judge told a Washington committee that the new legislation "would make a meaningful inquiry impossible", creating "impossible terms for any international judge asked to chair the inquiry". He described it as "an intolerable, Alice in Wonderland situation".

Lord Saville, who chairs the Bloody Sunday inquiry, has said he would not be prepared to serve on a tribunal under the new terms.

The Law Society, Amnesty International and eight other human rights groups this week issued a statement warning that any inquiry held under the proposed legislation "would not be effective, independent, impartial or thorough, nor would the evidence presented to it be subject to sufficient public scrutiny".

In order to command the trust of the public, the inquiry system must allow "close public scrutiny" and allow the relevant victims to actively participate. "The inquiries bill does not do this," they warned.

Let us not forget Rosemary Nelson, Pat Finucane and all the other victims of British terrorism in the current media frenzy about Robert McCartney.