‘Stormontgate’ charges dropped

More than three years after “Stormontgate” closed down the administration run jointly by nationalists and unionists, a prosecution lawyer told a court in Belfast that no evidence would be presented against Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and government messenger William Mackessy.
The prosecutor offered no explanation other than that the authorities deemed it to be “in the public interest” to abandon the case. That statement prompted unionist and nationalist leaders, as well as politicians in London and Dublin, to call for a full explanation from the British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.
Donaldson said he had been a victim of “politically inspired charges,” and Sinn Fein said the episode showed there was no spy ring inside British government offices. “There never was,” Donaldson said.
Ciaran Shiels, the lawyer representing Donaldson and 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 in this country.”
However, while acknowledging that the three men were presumed innocent, the Police Service of Northern Ireland insisted that the IRA “was actively involved in the systematic gathering of information and targeting of individuals” from inside British administration offices at Stormont, outside Belfast, eight years after the group first declared a ceasefire.
The affair began in October 2002, when police raided Sinn Fein’s office inside Parliament Buildings, the seat of the power-sharing government where the Northern Ireland Assembly met. British officials briefed the media that an IRA spying operation had been uncovered in nearby Castle Buildings, the office of Britain’s Secretary of State.
Thousands of documents – including the summary of a conversation between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair – were reported to have been recovered during follow-up searches in Belfast. The British government spent millions of pounds on security for people allegedly named in the documents, including hundreds of prison guards.
David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader who was then first minister of the power-sharing administration, notified the British that he would no longer participate in government with Sinn Fein. Ten days after the raid on the Sinn Fein office, the British began the suspension of the Stormont administration that continues today.
The ending of all criminal charges prompted a new round of accusations about the roots of the affair. Sinn Fein accused the British government of mounting a dirty tricks operation to help preserve Trimble, who was under severe political pressure – and was eventually displaced by – Ian Paisley’s DUP. Unionists accused the government of dropping a legitimate case in order to ease Sinn Fein’s way back into a new power-sharing administration.
Peter Hain, the British secretary of state, said he knew in advance about the decision to drop the case, but denied having any role in it. “This was a decision for the Director of Public Prosecutions exclusively,” he said.
|As an independent Northern Ireland prosecution service, they took that decision. The idea that they would be influenced by any politician, and certainly any minister, is preposterous,” he said.
He also said the idea of a conspiracy to bring down the Northern Ireland government was “100 percent wrong.””
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the entire case “created huge grief.” He said the evidence that the British had claimed was “irrefutable” had disappeared “like snow in June.
“It was a lot of grief for no prosecutions,” Ahern said.