A PROMINENT Irish Republican who has been unmasked as a British government spy was last night believed to have fled to the Continent in fear of his life.

Denis Donaldson's house in West Belfast was found abandoned, with informed sources saying there was no prospect of him returning to Ulster or the Republic of Ireland because of the risk of being killed. Scotland has also been ruled out as a bolthole.

Unionists last night renewed their calls for a full public inquiry into the "Stormontgate" affair which saw Ulster's assembly suspended in 2002 amid allegations of spying by Sinn Fein officials.

Donaldson, Sinn Fein's former head of administration at Stormont, was expelled from the party on Friday after he owned up to working for British intelligence and the Northern Irish Special Branch for 20 years.

He had been one of three Republican officials charged with spying at Stormont, but last week the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland controversially decided to drop the case against all three.

In his statement admitting being a British government informer, Donaldson denied that the Republicans had ever carried out any spying at Stormont.

He had issued his statement from a hotel in Dublin after fleeing Belfast.

Although the IRA has put its arms beyond use and should in theory not be able to harm Donaldson, it is feared that individuals within the Republican movement would want to kill him in revenge for having been a British mole.

One informed Belfast-based source told Scotland on Sunday: "He has gone to a bolthole on the Continent, either France or Italy. He can basically forget about coming back to West Belfast. Even if the Sinn Fein leadership says he is not to be harmed, he will always worry that someone from the movement will regard him as having betrayed 'the cause' and will want to get him."

The source added: "He won't have gone to Scotland either. He will regard Scotland as much too risky."

Throughout the Troubles a series of Republicans have been unmasked as British agents. Many died - their bodies dumped with an IRA bullet in the head.

Sinn Fein last night accused the UK government of having operated the only spy ring at Stormont.

The party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, said: "It is very, very clear from Sinn Fein's perspective - and I think this is shared increasingly by many other people within our society - that there was a spy ring at Stormont, but it was a British spy ring controlled by securocrats, by people within the establishment who are hostile to the peace process."

The "spying" is believed to have consisted of Sinn Fein officials using their position at Stormont to secure access to previously confidential files from the Northern Ireland Office which could have been used to help piece together information about the security services.

But one informed source claimed that any espionage by Sinn Fein would have been a cosmetic exercise designed to keep extremists in the Republican movement from resorting to violence.

She said: "If there was spying then it was gathering of information that would never be used. It worked like this: the IRA guys and the hardliners keep agitating for a return to the 'armed struggle'. So to keep them on board the leadership would say, 'Don't worry, our boys are in there using the system, carrying out spying.'"

But a spokesman for the Ulster Unionist Party renewed calls for a full public inquiry.

He said: "What must now come out is the truth about what was going on. Right now it seems that the Republicans are saying, 'How dare those Brits spy on our spies?'"
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=2426042005

This Stormontgate nonsense has gone on for too long. Notice Martin McGuinness mentioned 'securocrats'. These securocrats are faceless entities that operate in the corridors of power, doing all they can to spin out the conflict here, apparently, although noone has ever reported spotting one.

Sinn Fein officials were found with personal details of assembly members at the photocopier. The Secretary of State was presented with the evidence, and decided to suspend the Assembly, knowing full well the implications of his actions. This tells me that there was substantial evidence implicating wrongdoing- the Government had spent years and millions of pounds getting Stormont up and running, and it was holding together the country, and there was nothing to be gained by suspending Stormont.

As for "If there was spying then it was gathering of information that would never be used. It worked like this: the IRA guys and the hardliners keep agitating for a return to the 'armed struggle'. So to keep them on board the leadership would say, 'Don't worry, our boys are in there using the system, carrying out spying.'" - I suppose that makes spying on people alright then.

The Troubles are over here, but the new battle will be fought in history and politics classrooms. It is the battle to revise history, and this is only one part. Sinn Fein and the IRA will be doing all they can to ensure that history treats them as freedom fighters, rather than a violent minority who tried to impose their constitutional will over a democratic majority. The Loyalist paramilitaries are doing just the same, though with nowhere near the same level of sophistication. Remember at all times when these people talk that they are people who willingly shot and killed soldiers, policemen and people because of their political beliefs, and who bombed their home city indiscriminately.

I hate the politics in NI. This place can be soooooooo backward.

Good to see Civil Partnerships come into force here though (even if some braindead numbskull Free Presbyterians rallied against the "Sodomites" )

It's part and parcel of living here, I'm afraid.

As for the CPs, I'm amazed it took them so long to make it legal. I hope noone in the DUP ever got head, or they're going straight to hell for sodomy too.

There was the MLA Berry and that male masseuse

Aye, Finucaine is taking the case. Hilarious.

We should just rename this the "Northern Ireland News Thread" and be done with it