A British agent who joined the IRA to spy on them for Britain has been shot dead. He was shot in the head, execution-style.
The Times April 05, 2006
Denis Donaldson last December after he had been cleared of spying allegations
IRA man who spied for Britain is found shot dead
By David Sharrock
A former agent who infiltrated the heart of Sinn Fein is murdered at his remote cottage hideaway just four months after being exposed
THE most senior British agent to have been exposed as having worked at the heart of Sinn Fein was found murdered at his home last night.
Denis Donaldson had been shot in the head, execution-style, inside the primitive cottage in Glenties, Co Donegal, where he had been living since he was dramatically outed as a spy in December.
The IRA said in a statement that it was not responsible, but suspicion will fall on an organisation of which Mr Donaldson was a former member.
Irish police said that Mr Donaldson had been killed with a shotgun, and that his hand had been severed during the attack. They would not comment on reports that he had been tortured before death and his body mutilated.
Mr Donaldson’s exposure and murder may seem to be the stuff of thrillers, but the repercussions were only beginning to sink in last night. A senior government source said that the murder was being viewed as an attempt to derail the latest — and possibly final — attempt to bring the Northern Ireland peace process to a successful resolution.
The source was referring to the visit by Tony Blair to the Province tomorrow during which he and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, will announce the revival of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Last night the Northern Ireland Office said: “Nothing will deflect the Government from its aim of ensuring political progress in Northern Ireland.” The Irish Government insisted that plans to announce proposals for a new power-sharing executive this week would go ahead despite the killing. “The dark detail that surrounds this murder is a tragic and regrettable reminder of Northern Ireland’s past,” a spokesman said.
Trying to coax the hardline Democratic Unionists into power-sharing with Sinn Fein will prove even more difficult after what will be seen as a highly political killing. Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said that he was “completely appalled by this barbaric act”. Mr Ahern said: “We condemn this brutal murder.” He said that a police investigation was under way.
Mr Donaldson had so many potential and real enemies that it may never be known who carried out the killing. He carried a heavy burden of secrets, from inside the deepest workings of the republican movement and also from the counter-terrorism elite.
Even so, suspicion is likely to be directed in the first instance towards his old comrades. It was only a few months before Mr Donaldson’s exposure that the Provisional IRA said that its “armed campaign” to end British rule in Ireland and all related activities were at an end.
Before that announcement it would have been a certainty that Mr Donaldson would have been treated the same as scores of fellow republicans accused of espionage before him — a bloody interrogation, a bag over the head, a bullet, and a body left on the side of a bleak border road.
Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, who shared a long and close working relationship with Mr Donaldson since they spent time together in jail, immediately condemned the killing and tried to distance the republican movement from it: “I want to disassociate Sinn Fein, and indeed all republicans who support the peace process, from that killing.”
Asked if he believed the murder was, therefore, the work of dissident republicans, he replied: “I’m not going to speculate. Denis Donaldson, as you know, worked for the British Government. He was an agent of the British Government, so I have an entirely open mind if he was killed or murdered, who was behind it.”
Sinn Fein had previously issued an assurance that Mr Donaldson’s life was not at risk, after his confession on television before Christmas. Mr Adams added last night: “How could Sinn Fein offer him any protection?” He said he presumed that the responsibility for doing that lay elsewhere.
The IRA statement said: “The IRA had no involvement whatsoever in the death of Denis Donaldson.” It was signed, as always, “P. O’Neill”.
Tracked down by an Irish newspaper last month to a cottage in Co Donegal, Mr Donaldson was said to appear gaunt and chastened by his change of circumstances. For years he had been liked, as much by journalists as by fellow republicans, for his humour, sharp mind and evident pleasure in the finer things in life. Little did anybody realise that he had been working for British Intelligence and the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch for more than 20 years. That a man as trusted and apparently committed to the republican cause as Mr Donaldson could have been spying for the British for so many years posed the pertinent question: “If Denis, then who else?” Mr Donaldson was an East Belfast Catholic who joined the IRA as a teenager. He served a prison sentence for bombing a distillery and forged a close alliance with Mr Adams’s “kitchen cabinet”, a team who went on to reshape the Provisional IRA into the most lethal and efficient terrorist organisation in Western Europe.
The Rev Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, was sceptical about the IRA denial of responsibility and said that the killing could affect the meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Ahern. “There are serious talks that are going to take place and I would say that this has put a dark cloud over those talks,” he said.
REPUBLICAN LIFE
1950 Born in republican Short Strand, east Belfast
Mid-1960s Joined IRA. Sided with the Provisional wing in 1969
1971 Caught trying to bomb government buildings. Jailed for four years, later became a key ally of Gerry Adams
1981 Arrested in Paris with false passports. Freed and fostered links with groups such as ETA and the PLO
Mid-1980s Recruited by British security services
Early 1990s Backed peace process and set up Sinn Fein office in the US
1998 Appointed head of Sinn Fein’s Stormont office
October 2002 Charged after a raid on Sinn Fein offices in inquiry into alleged IRA spy ring inside the Northern Ireland Office
December 2005 Admits being a British agent for 20 years, a week after he is acquitted of spy charges
March 2006 Tracked to a cottage in Co Donegal, Irish Republic by a journalist
thetimesonline.co.uk
The Times April 05, 2006
Denis Donaldson last December after he had been cleared of spying allegations
IRA man who spied for Britain is found shot dead
By David Sharrock
A former agent who infiltrated the heart of Sinn Fein is murdered at his remote cottage hideaway just four months after being exposed
THE most senior British agent to have been exposed as having worked at the heart of Sinn Fein was found murdered at his home last night.
Denis Donaldson had been shot in the head, execution-style, inside the primitive cottage in Glenties, Co Donegal, where he had been living since he was dramatically outed as a spy in December.
The IRA said in a statement that it was not responsible, but suspicion will fall on an organisation of which Mr Donaldson was a former member.
Irish police said that Mr Donaldson had been killed with a shotgun, and that his hand had been severed during the attack. They would not comment on reports that he had been tortured before death and his body mutilated.
Mr Donaldson’s exposure and murder may seem to be the stuff of thrillers, but the repercussions were only beginning to sink in last night. A senior government source said that the murder was being viewed as an attempt to derail the latest — and possibly final — attempt to bring the Northern Ireland peace process to a successful resolution.
The source was referring to the visit by Tony Blair to the Province tomorrow during which he and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, will announce the revival of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Last night the Northern Ireland Office said: “Nothing will deflect the Government from its aim of ensuring political progress in Northern Ireland.” The Irish Government insisted that plans to announce proposals for a new power-sharing executive this week would go ahead despite the killing. “The dark detail that surrounds this murder is a tragic and regrettable reminder of Northern Ireland’s past,” a spokesman said.
Trying to coax the hardline Democratic Unionists into power-sharing with Sinn Fein will prove even more difficult after what will be seen as a highly political killing. Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said that he was “completely appalled by this barbaric act”. Mr Ahern said: “We condemn this brutal murder.” He said that a police investigation was under way.
Mr Donaldson had so many potential and real enemies that it may never be known who carried out the killing. He carried a heavy burden of secrets, from inside the deepest workings of the republican movement and also from the counter-terrorism elite.
Even so, suspicion is likely to be directed in the first instance towards his old comrades. It was only a few months before Mr Donaldson’s exposure that the Provisional IRA said that its “armed campaign” to end British rule in Ireland and all related activities were at an end.
Before that announcement it would have been a certainty that Mr Donaldson would have been treated the same as scores of fellow republicans accused of espionage before him — a bloody interrogation, a bag over the head, a bullet, and a body left on the side of a bleak border road.
Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, who shared a long and close working relationship with Mr Donaldson since they spent time together in jail, immediately condemned the killing and tried to distance the republican movement from it: “I want to disassociate Sinn Fein, and indeed all republicans who support the peace process, from that killing.”
Asked if he believed the murder was, therefore, the work of dissident republicans, he replied: “I’m not going to speculate. Denis Donaldson, as you know, worked for the British Government. He was an agent of the British Government, so I have an entirely open mind if he was killed or murdered, who was behind it.”
Sinn Fein had previously issued an assurance that Mr Donaldson’s life was not at risk, after his confession on television before Christmas. Mr Adams added last night: “How could Sinn Fein offer him any protection?” He said he presumed that the responsibility for doing that lay elsewhere.
The IRA statement said: “The IRA had no involvement whatsoever in the death of Denis Donaldson.” It was signed, as always, “P. O’Neill”.
Tracked down by an Irish newspaper last month to a cottage in Co Donegal, Mr Donaldson was said to appear gaunt and chastened by his change of circumstances. For years he had been liked, as much by journalists as by fellow republicans, for his humour, sharp mind and evident pleasure in the finer things in life. Little did anybody realise that he had been working for British Intelligence and the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch for more than 20 years. That a man as trusted and apparently committed to the republican cause as Mr Donaldson could have been spying for the British for so many years posed the pertinent question: “If Denis, then who else?” Mr Donaldson was an East Belfast Catholic who joined the IRA as a teenager. He served a prison sentence for bombing a distillery and forged a close alliance with Mr Adams’s “kitchen cabinet”, a team who went on to reshape the Provisional IRA into the most lethal and efficient terrorist organisation in Western Europe.
The Rev Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, was sceptical about the IRA denial of responsibility and said that the killing could affect the meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Ahern. “There are serious talks that are going to take place and I would say that this has put a dark cloud over those talks,” he said.
REPUBLICAN LIFE
1950 Born in republican Short Strand, east Belfast
Mid-1960s Joined IRA. Sided with the Provisional wing in 1969
1971 Caught trying to bomb government buildings. Jailed for four years, later became a key ally of Gerry Adams
1981 Arrested in Paris with false passports. Freed and fostered links with groups such as ETA and the PLO
Mid-1980s Recruited by British security services
Early 1990s Backed peace process and set up Sinn Fein office in the US
1998 Appointed head of Sinn Fein’s Stormont office
October 2002 Charged after a raid on Sinn Fein offices in inquiry into alleged IRA spy ring inside the Northern Ireland Office
December 2005 Admits being a British agent for 20 years, a week after he is acquitted of spy charges
March 2006 Tracked to a cottage in Co Donegal, Irish Republic by a journalist
thetimesonline.co.uk