Finucane, who had acted for Irish Republican Army suspects, was shot dead in his Belfast home by the Ulster Defense Association, a banned Protestant militia. His death is one of the highest profile killings of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles,” three decades of violence in which more than 3,500 people died.

Britain announced on Wednesday a public inquiry into the 1989 murder in Northern Ireland of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, whose death remains a lightning rod for anger over state collusion with pro-British paramilitaries.