Potential political fallout ‘cannot be underestimated’

THE raids began around 5am. Teams of police officers fanned out across north and west Belfast, arresting four people and searching their homes.

At the same time, dozens of officers, detectives, technical support and uniforms, were carried in Land Rovers through the gates of Stormont in the east of the city.

They were about to carry out an unprecedented search and seize operation at the heart of the Northern

government.

The potential political fallout of the raid on the Sinn Féin offices at Stormont cannot be underestimated, according to one political analyst.

Author and lecturer Sidney Elliot, of Queen’s University, said: “The institutions have been proved extremely robust and have survived but this is something very difficult, very dangerous.”

Unionists have jumped on the raids to call for Sinn Féin to be thrown out of government while republicans are seething over what they claim is a politically motivated attack on the party.

The PSNI yesterday said the operation was part of an investigation into the activities of republicans in Belfast but would not reveal how many addresses were raided or how many people were arrested. Documents and discs were seized.

Security sources said four people were arrested, including Sinn Féin’s head of administration at Stormont, and former Westminster candidate

Denis Donaldson and a former NIO employee who worked as a messenger at the heart of the administration.

They are investigating claims that information, described as sensitive, from the NIO was passed on to republicans. But reliable insiders in the North said the documents were political, not security sensitive; that the unionist parties have for years been passed political information from moles inside the NIO and that the police, far from forensically examining the offices, carried out a quick search and took away a few discs.

It is understood, Secretary of State John Reid knew of the raids beforehand and the Chief Constable Hugh Orde was fully briefed. Even the police board, made up of all major parties apart from Sinn Féin, is believed to have been told on Thursday.

Veteran watchers of the house of smoke and mirrors known as the peace process have cautioned against concluding the peace process is dead. One reliable political insider said he fully expected the executive to collapse within days but that it was going to happen anyway in January. “There is a political dimension and it may be the plan is to collapse it in order to save the process,” said the insider.

Elliot added: “This is big and coming at a time when you have deadline (for the Ulster Unionist-threatened collapse of the executive) and where you have some sort of movement on Castlereagh and knowing the Colombia trial is going to start. It’s all coming to a head.”

Security sources said yesterday’s searches and seizures were not connected to the probe into the theft of intelligence files at Castlereagh police station last March.

But the operation had been planned for some time and was part of a year long undercover operation into

intelligence-gathering by Sinn Féin.

Up to about a year ago, the government messenger under suspicion for passing on information worked inside Castle Buildings, where Northern Secretary John Reid and his ministers have their offices, and was among three men and one woman questioned by anti-terrorist police.

The messenger handled all internal and external mail, including letters from Downing Street and had been free to enter any room, including security minister Jane Kennedy’s office.