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Durkan said the Kelly family had only become aware of Anderson's "pending release when the release had actually happened".
"I've written now to the justice minister seeking a meeting for the Kelly family for them to put these questions to her and get the answers but I want to make it clear that they're not blaming the minister," he said.
"They've found it quite unedifying to be honest that this seems to have been used by some others as a stick to beat Naomi Long with."
The Foyle MLA said the family would not "begrudge their son's murderers getting out of prison to attend their own father's funeral".
But, he said, the family had questions around how Anderson's release was approved.
"The family are very interested to know what evidence was provided or what evidence wasn't provided by the prison service in order for the court to deem it not substantial," he said.
The SDLP MLA added: "It's clear that someone in some prison seems to have dropped the ball here while the courts are blaming the prison, the prison are blaming the courts and the Kelly family are sort of stuck in the middle of that back and forth and that's not good enough. They deserve much better than that."
He said there were questions, too, around the release itself.
"How that was managed, who the civilian chaperone was, how they were approved by the court and also in terms of how they, as victims in this instance, were informed.
William McKee, former governor at the Maze Prison, told BBC Radio Ulster's The Nolan Show: "We need to remember governors are not legally trained, so they're dependant on the legal advice they're afforded whenever they're making submissions to the courts.
"We have to emphasise that the governor was right in his initial decision to refuse the prisoner to be good to go on temporary release."
