Dissident republicans planned to assassinate Gerry Adams but were deterred by security arrangements taken by the Sinn Féin president and his security advisers, Mr Adams has disclosed.
The PSNI informed Mr Adams that dissidents planned to shoot him but that they called off their attack because of security measures he had taken, Mr Adams said at Stormont yesterday.
The PSNI told him that dissidents had a plan "to kill me by shooting", but that they abandoned it because of the security arrangements he had in place.
This is the fourth time in recent weeks that information has been released about a dissident threat to Sinn Féin leaders. Sinn Féin has learned, both from its own intelligence and warnings passed on by the PSNI, of death threats against Mr Adams, the party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, and policing and justice spokesman Gerry Kelly.
"The fact that there are so many of these reports coming I do believe there is a very active threat to leading Sinn Féin members. We have to take it seriously," he said.
Former disaffected IRA members and/or members of groups such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA are behind the threats, Sinn Féin believes. The dissidents were using the current negotiations aimed at persuading Sinn Féin to support policing as an excuse for the threats, said Mr Adams.
"Clearly there are elements who are opposed to Sinn Féin's peace strategy. They have consistently opposed that strategy for a very long time. The issue of policing is an excuse," he added.
"It is being used and exploited by them. It is clearly an important issue but it is being manipulated as part of the wider hostility to Sinn Féin's peace strategy and we are not going to be deflected and, of course, we are dealing with the policing issue as I have outlined publicly on a number of occasions," added Mr Adams.
Northern Secretary Peter Hain condemned the threats. "Violence or the threat of terror will not deflect us from getting local government back in Northern Ireland," he said in Derry yesterday.
Speaking in Derry, Mr Hain also described the threat as an insult to the people of Northern Ireland, but he declined to say if he would approve an application from Mr Adams for a personal protection weapon.
"Any threat must be taken seriously," he said.
