McGuinness dismisses British spy allegations as ‘hooey’

SINN Féin’s Martin McGuinness said yesterday he was a million percent certain that no evidence could be produced to support allegations that he was a British spy.

In his first public appearance since the allegations surfaced in the Sunday World newspaper, the Mid Ulster MP described the claims that he worked for MI6 as “hooey”.

The former Stormont Education Minister also accused elements within the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party of being behind the allegations.

Mr McGuinness said after a meeting of his Assembly group: “I am a thousand, I am a million% confident no one will ever produce anything against me.

“I have worked all of my adult life as an Irish republican.

“Many of my comrades have been killed. Many IRA volunteers have been killed and I, of course, knew many of them as many of you well know.

“Under no circumstances will I ever be concerned about anybody throwing anything up at me.

“It is not even a remote possibility.”

The allegations against Mr McGuinness were made by former British army intelligence handler Martin Ingram, who exposed Belfast republican Freddie Scappaticci as the British agent Stakeknife, who operated at the heart of the IRA.

Mr Scappaticci denied the allegations but later fled his west Belfast home.

Mr Ingram’s claim, which was published in the Sunday World, also followed hard on the unmasking by Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams last December of the party’s head of administration at Stormont Denis Donaldson as a spy.

Mr Donaldson admitted that he had spied on republican colleagues in a confession broadcast on Irish television and later went to ground.

But when his hideaway, a remote cottage in Glenties in Co Donegal, was exposed, his own personal security was compromised.

Mr Donaldson was gunned down in April in the cottage.

Sinn Féin has rubbished Mr Ingram’s claims, which are based on a transcript published on Sunday of a conversation allegedly between Mr McGuinness and an MI6 handler.

Mr McGuinness said yesterday: “The allegations are a load of rubbish.

“They are total and absolute nonsense and they are hooey of the worst kind.”