Sinn Fein spy death treated as murder

DUBLIN - Police have launched a murder inquiry after finding the mutilated body of former Sinn Fein member Denis Donaldson who last year admitted spying on fellow Irish nationalists on behalf of British security forces.

The IRA denied it was behind a killing that risks heightening mistrust two days before a fresh bid by Dublin and London to end a political stalemate in the province.

"The Gardai (police) are treating it as a homicide not a suicide," Irish Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said.

"They found the body on the floor with a bullet wound to the head," he told Sky Television. "There is damage to his right forearm ... it is almost severed."

Police in the Republic of Ireland confirmed they were investigating the discovery of a man in his mid-50s in Donegal.

Donaldson was a convicted IRA bomber who spent time in prison with Gerry Adams, now leader of the paramilitary group's political ally Sinn Fein.

Donaldson was again arrested in 2002 and accused of spying for Sinn Fein at the Stormont parliament in Belfast but in a dramatic twist he was expelled from the party in December after admitting he had been a mole for the British for two decades.

The IRA took the unusual step of issuing a brief statement on Tuesday, which said: "The IRA had no involvement whatsoever in the death of Denis Donaldson."

The guerrilla group called a cease-fire in 1997 and pledged last July to down arms and pursue its fight for a united Ireland through democratic means. An independent watchdog reported in October that the paramilitary group was keeping to its pledge.

But Northern Ireland's main unionist party cast doubt on whether the IRA had renounced violence.

"If what I have heard is true, that they cut his hand off then that would show that they were saying 'here was the hand that signed away his obligation to IRA/Sinn Fein,'" said Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley.

"If this is so, or there is any suggestion that this is so ... this is a terrible happening that has very serious repercussions," he said.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams condemned the killing, agreeing it could damage efforts to restore the province's regional government.

"It is likely that his death at this time is intended to undermine current efforts to make political progress," he said in a statement. "Those who carried out this murder are clearly opposed to the peace process."

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, are both expected in Northern Ireland this week to unveil their latest plan to kick-start a mothballed assembly which collapsed in part due to the 2002 allegations that Donaldson and others had been spying for Sinn Fein.

The Stormont assembly, in which Catholic and Protestant parties on either side of the Northern Ireland's sectarian divide shared power, collapsed three years ago after a police raid on Sinn Fein offices.

- REUTERS