The so called IRA “Stormont spy ring” case that brought down the Assembly is over! All three

Published: 9 December, 2005

Yesterday the so called IRA “Stormont spy ring” case ended at Belfast Crown Court as the government decided to drop all charges against Sinn Féin’s head of administration Denis Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and civil servant William Mackessy.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said the allegation of a spy ring was concocted in 2002 to destroy political progress.  The publicly orchestrated arrest and trial by the PSNI Special Branch brought down the N. I. Assembly over three years ago.  Britain is still in “Direct Rule” over the Six Counties of the north of Ireland. 

In the almost eight years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the power sharing political institutions were in operation for only 20 months!

“We said very clearly at the time of that event that this case would fall apart,” Mr McGuinness said.  “There was no evidence whatsoever to sustain it and we have been proven correct. This is a shameful episode, a damning indictment of the fact that the spirit of the RUC Special Branch is effectively alive and well within the PSNI.  

Prosecutors told Belfast Crown Court that no further evidence would be put forward and the prosecution was no longer in the public interest.  Mr Justice Harte said a verdict of not guilty had to be returned.

Ciaran Shiels, of the Madden and Finucane law firm which represented Mr Donaldson and Mr Mackessy, said, “Our clients are of the clear view that they were victims of a political operation by elements within the security forces who deliberately used their position to hamper political progress.”

The DUP leader, Ian Paisley, said: "The right thinking people of Ulster will be totally flabbergasted at the decision taken to drop all prosecutions on the IRA spy ring at Stormont because after a three year delay it has been decided that it is not in the public interest."

Right thinking people throughout the world were thinking all along that it was a set up to give cover and protect David Trimble’s UUP which was about to bring down the assembly itself through its impossible demands and lack of political courage to share power with Irish nationalists and Sinn Fein.

 The “no harm no foul” rule can’t apply here.  The three men and their families have been put through hell and representative democracy has been delivered a blow from which it has still to recover.