Geraldine Finucane says British government 'engineered a suppression of the truth behind the murder of my husband'

On the evening of Sunday 12 February 1989, the Finucane family were sitting together for dinner in their north Belfast home when loyalist gunmen sledge-hammered their way into the house and shot Patrick Finucane dead.

On Wednesday afternoon, the family were united again to deliver their reaction to the latest in a long series of investigations into one of Northern Ireland's most controversial killings.

Sir Desmond de Silva's "Report of the Patrick Finucane Review" offered scant relief for Geraldine Finucane, who has campaigned for more than two decades for a public inquiry into the murder of her husband.

After watching David Cameron deliver his statement to the House of Commons, she told a press conference at Westminster that the latest report into the killing was a "sham" and a "whitewash".

"It's a report into which we have had no input," she said. "The British government has engineered a suppression of the truth behind the murder of my husband. At every turn it is clear that this report has done exactly what was required – to give the benefit of the doubt to the state, its cabinet and ministers, to the army, to the intelligence services and to itself.

"At every turn, dead witnesses have been blamed and defunct agencies found wanting. Serving personnel and active state departments appear to have been excused.

"The dirt has been swept under the carpet without any serious attempt to lift the lid on what really happened to Pat and so many others.

"This report is a sham, this report is a whitewash, this report is a confidence trick dressed up as independent scrutiny and given invisible clothes of reliability. But most of all, most hurtful and insulting of all, this report is not the truth."

Finucane insisted that the family came to London prepared to judge the report with "an open mind" and with "a faint hope" that their misgivings would be proved wrong.

But she added: "I regret to say that once again we have been proved right." The review has been "compiled by a lawyer with strong links to the Conservative party who was appointed by the Conservative government without consultation".

Finucane said she accepted the prime minister's apology but suggested he had little choice but to offer one. "He is a human being. He probably does think it is an atrocious act. But unfortunately he is quite removed from Northern Ireland or what went on in the late 80s. So maybe it isn't very hard for him to apologise.

"I will give him the benefit of the doubt and accept the apology but it doesn't go far enough because I don't really know what he is apologising for."

But Michael Finucane, the eldest son who has followed his father into the legal profession, acknowledged that some new elements had been uncovered by the report.

"This is another piece of the jigsaw," he said. "The report needs to be read and the [intelligence] documents studied. They are bare and cold, containing more shocking facts. That can be used to further our case for a public inquiry.

"David Cameron referred repeatedly in the [Commons] to what went wrong here," but, Michael Finucane said, "nothing went wrong here".

"This is exactly what it was designed to do: to improve and focus the targeting abilities of loyalist paramilitaries over many years.

"A thorn in the side of the authorities could be removed, killed, in circumstances where the state could deny any responsibility."

There were probably "hundreds of others" killed in similar circumstances, he added.

He believed there would be a public inquiry if Labour won the next UK general election as he expected the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to "keep his word" on the need for one.