LONDON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The British government has drawn condemnation for refusing to hold an inquiry into the alleged Sinn Fein spying ring which brought down the Northern Ireland Assembly, fueling suspicions of a political hand in the affair.
Dubbed "Stormontgate," the spying ring case is a murky affair of the type that has long blighted the Northern Ireland political landscape.
The current controversy erupted earlier this month when prosecutors dropped a three-year-long case against three Sinn Fein members accused of operating a spy ring in the offices of the Northern Ireland Assembly, on the grounds that the prosecution was no longer "in the public interest."
One of the men, Denis Donaldson, a senior figure in Sinn Fein, admitted Friday that he had been working as a British agent for the past 20 years and claimed that the spy ring was a fiction created by British intelligence.
The allegations were vehemently denied by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who Monday rejected calls for a public inquiry into the affair.
"The fact is that there was a paramilitary intelligence-gathering operation at Stormont," he said.
A huge number of stolen documents pertaining to the work of the British government's Northern Ireland Office, contacts between the British and Irish governments and contacts with the U.S. administration had been found in a west Belfast property, he continued. As a result, over 1,000 people had to be warned and protected, at a cost of 35 million pounds ($62 million).
The Ombudsman had investigated the complaints from Sinn Fein and found no evidence to substantiate allegations that the police raid on Stormont was politically motivated, Hain concluded.
Both he and Prime Minister Tony Blair have also denied there was any political hand in the decision to drop the case against the three Sinn Fein members.
The raids on Sinn Fein's offices at Stormont in October 2002 brought an end to three years of devolution, and led to the return of direct rule by Westminster.
Sinn Fein claims that elements in British intelligence were opposed to the peace process and invented the spy ring in order to bring down the power-sharing assembly.
The party hit back at Hain and Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde Tuesday for neglecting to mention in public statements that the west Belfast property in which the incriminating documents had been found was the home of Donaldson, the ousted British agent.
Sinn Fein President Richard McAuley told United Press International that the operation had essentially been a "coup d'etat."
A small number of people within British military intelligence, Special Branch and the Police Service of Northern Ireland had been "actively working against the peace process," he said.
Sinn Fein did not know whether the members of the British government had known of the plot, but "would like to think not," McAuley continued.
With regards to the motivation of those responsible, the Sinn Fein president said the intelligence and security services had for 30 years been fighting a war against Irish republicanism. Some elements within those agencies were opposed to the peace process and the growth of Sinn Fein, "their enemy," as a political player both in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic.
"For them, that's a combination of factors they are deeply unhappy with," he said.
Many were closely linked to the unionist parties and were politically hostile to republicans, he continued. Two previous Northern Ireland secretaries and the Chief Constable Hugh Orde had all complained of leaks from their offices designed to undermine government policy, he noted.
The raids on Stormont in 2002 had been "effectively a piece of political theater," McAuley told UPI. Members of the media had been tipped off and arrived to watch some 15 PSNI Landrovers arrive outside Sinn Fein's offices. From some 25 Sinn Fein offices, all the police had taken were two computer disks, which were returned some days later.
McAuley claimed the entire operation had been "organized and orchestrated" by the head of PSNI Special Branch at that time, Bill Lowry.
One month later, Lowry was transferred out of his job as Special Branch commander over a series of leaks to the media, some of which involved the Stormont raid.
Lowry was a prominent supporter of the Democratic Unionist Party, and had spoken alongside DUP Leader Ian Paisley when he made his infamous speech in Ballymena last year demanding the IRA wear "sackcloth and ashes," McAuley alleged.
The former Special Branch chief was "clearly opposed to" power-sharing at Stormont and would also have known that Denis Donaldson was a British agent.
Donaldson had been sacrificed as part of a "conspiracy concocted by the Special Branch, within the PSNI, the people who were part of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary," he said. "There is a little nest of vipers in all this."
Sinn Fein would fully support an inquiry into the case, McAuley concluded; however its priority was ensuring the British government cracked down on this "political policing," otherwise all efforts to restore a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland would be fruitless.
Though Hain denied Monday that political policing remained in Northern Ireland, police chiefs have suggested otherwise.
In 2003, a partially published report by Sir John Stevens, Britain's most senior police officer, said that the relationship between Special Branch officers, British army intelligence officers and loyalist paramilitaries was so unprincipled and unaccountable that it borders on "institutionalized collusion."
The mysterious collapse of the spy ring case and the government's resistance to an inquiry has fueled deep suspicion of some level of political involvement in the affair, not only from republicans but unionists also.
The DUP's Ian Paisley Junior said Monday that Hain's denial of a political hand in the collapse of the case was "preposterous," and suggested it had been part of a deal in order to secure IRA decommissioning, announced earlier this year.
Though he dismissed suggestions that the spy ring was British-orchestrated, Paisley said he believed a Northern Ireland Office official had been authorized to pass information to Sinn Fein.
"If that is the case then the government's refusal to make a statement is not about protecting the life of an agent but about hiding their own duplicitous hand in the mercy business of aiding and abetting Sinn Fein's political agenda."
Donaldson had in fact been a "double agent," he claimed, "playing both sides for money and power."
The whole affair had so eroded political trust in Northern Ireland that there was no current prospect of restoring devolution in the region, Paisley added.
The British and Irish governments are keen to begin the process of reinstating the power-sharing executive in January. However, without a proper explanation of the curious events surrounding the Stormont spy ring, suspicions are only likely to deepen, undermining efforts towards political progress.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Friday his government had always had its doubts about Stormontgate, adding: "If one of Sinn Fein's top administrators in Stormont turns out to be a British spy, this is as bizarre as it gets."
