SF's Stormont chief has key IRA role, court told

SINN FEIN'S administration chief at Stormont is at the head of the IRA's intelligence unit establishing worldwide links with other terror groups, a court heard yesterday.

Denis Donaldson, 52, was remanded in custody after a police probe into alleged IRA espionage inside the government seized more than 1,000 documents during raids at Parliament Buildings, Belfast, and republican homes in the west of the city last month.

But at his bail application in the High Court yesterday, it was claimed that Donaldson has forged close relationships with groups including ETA and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation during visits to Spain and Beirut as well as to El Salvador and Italy.

A lawyer for the Crown said: "The applicant is believed to be an active member of the Provisional IRA's general headquarters intelligence unit."

The court was told that Donaldson was one of a "tightknit group" consisting of no more than six people who would have access to the intelligence materials stolen from the government's main offices in Belfast.

More than 1,200 pages of documents were found in a bag at Donaldson's home in Aitnamona Crescent in West Belfast.

The court was told that about 700 of these came from the Northern Ireland Office and included top secret correspondence from 10 Downing Street, the Taoiseach's office, the Northern Ireland Secretary, the British Ministry of Defence, police and political parties in Northern Ireland, including the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP.

The bail application was adjourned until today.