BELFAST, Dec 6: Nationalist leader Gerry Adams said on Thursday that Britain had to acknowledge it had colluded in the murder of Roman Catholics by Protestant guerrillas or risk threatening Northern Ireland’s shaky peace process.

Adams, president of the Irish Republican Army’s political ally, Sinn Fein, made the comments as he issued a lengthy document calling for an international public inquiry into the killing of Roman Catholic human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, murdered by pro-British “loyalist” gunmen in 1989.

“Nothing will satisfy people apart from the British government acknowledging its role in all this,” Adams told reporters.

“It’s not going away. It’s going to come back until there is an explanation of what happened. It’s key to the peace process, it’s crucial to the perpetuation of this process.”

At talks in July aimed at shoring up the landmark 1998 Good Friday peace pact, the British and Irish governments agreed to a probe by a government-appointed judge into the Finucane case and allegations of collusion between security forces and loyalist death squads in other murders.

But Adams said this did not go far enough and said he had written to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern this week urging them to hold a full independent investigation.

Last week, the trial of William Stobie, a former British soldier, police informer and quartermaster for the Protestant Ulster Defence Association paramilitary group, who was accused of the murder, collapsed after a key prosecution witness failed to testify.

The police force has denied any role in the murder of Finucane, whose killing by gunmen at his home while he was having dinner with his family is one of the most controversial killings in 30 years of violence in the British-ruled province.

Allegations of collusion between the largely Protestant police force and pro-British guerrillas has been a major sticking point in attempts to create a long-lasting peace.

The province’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), is now being overhauled and has been renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland in an attempt to create a broad-based service as part of measures agreed in the Good Friday deal.

Adams claimed collusion between the RUC and Protestant guerrillas had been British policy, and Blair’s government had to persuade republicans that this strategy no longer existed.

“They are no doubt aware that this is not a case of a few bad apples. This was a matter of policy and a matter of strategy,” he said.“In other words Pat Finucane was killed as a matter of British policy. The British prime minister has to face up to this.”—Reuters