Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has claimed there is a British agenda behind allegations that he sanctioned the assassination of a high-ranking party official a decade ago.
A BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme on Tuesday claimed Mr Adams approved the 2006 killing of Denis Donaldson, a former Sinn Féin group administrator at the Stormont Assembly, on foot of a demand by republican Thomas "Slab" Murphy.
“There are elements in the British system who have never come to terms with the fact that Sinn Féin has five Ministers in the North, that Martin McGuinness leads along with Arlene Foster,” Mr Adams said when questioned about the matter at the National Ploughing Championships yesterday. “Their [agenda] included every counterinsurgency method known to humanity the 30 years of that conflict.”
May sue
Mr Adams said he would be quite happy to talk to police about the allegations. Asked would he sue the programme makers, he said it was “in the hands of my solicitors” and he would follow their advice.
He said the person who made the allegations was anonymous and yet his claims were allowed stand as fact. "It's a lie. It's wrong. I repudiate and deny it categorically . . . I was as shocked and surprised as anyone when Denis Donaldson was shot in Glenties in Donegal. "
Donaldson was shot dead in April 2006 after he confessed to being a British agent, which directly led to the collapse of Stormont’s institutions. His killing, which was claimed three years later by the Real IRA, has still not resulted in prosecutions.
His inquest has been repeatedly postponed on foot of applications by An Garda Síochána.
The man who made the allegations reportedly infiltrated the IRA for over a decade. He claims to have worked for the RUC special branch from 1997 – one of up to 1,000 informants.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the allegations about Mr Adams should be investigated if there is a basis to them. He said he would expect Mr Adams to co-operate with any investigation into the killing. “There are areas of the political past of Gerry Adams that need explanation and he is the only one who can answer the allegations,” said Mr Kenny.
Party credibility
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin claimed Sinn Féin was not a democratic party and not fit for government, saying his party would not consider any alliance or coalition with it.
"Attack and deny, attack and deny, that has become the standard Sinn Féin response," Mr Martin said."After last week's programme on Nama, Sinn Féin was first out of the traps to laud Spotlight and call for a commission of investigation . . . They had no issue with the credibility or the agenda of the programme last week."
Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness dismissed the claims that Mr Adams sanctioned the murder as “total and absolute rubbish”.
He said the allegations had been made principally by people who have a political agenda against Sinn Féin.
DUP MP David Simpson said the revelations showed informants played a vital role in compromising terrorist groups and that “lives have been saved as a result of their actions”.
“Paramilitaries have been a blight on our society and it is vital that we finally see the disbandment of all such groups which still have a grip on communities here.”