A man has appeared in court charged in connection with the murder of Denis Donaldson, an MI5 agent inside the IRA.
Patrick Gillespie is facing charges of withholding information about the killing of Donaldson, a former leading Sinn Féin member, in 2006.
The 74-year-old is charged with committing the offence between 2006 and 2016. He was remanded in custody by the Irish Republic’s non-jury anti-terrorist special criminal court in Dublin. Gillespie was arrested along with another man in Donegal on Tuesday by Irish detectives.
The Garda Síochána’s arrests are part of an investigation into the Donaldson murder, which took place just a few months after he had been exposed as an MI5 agent working inside the leadership of the republican movement. Dissident republican terror group the Real IRA admitted responsibility for the killing.
Donaldson – a former close associate of the Sinn Féin’s president, Gerry Adams – was killed by a shotgun blast as he answered the door to his cottage near Glenties, Co Donegal, in April 2006.
Before being exposed as a British spy, Donaldson was a prominent figure in Sinn Féin and eventually became head of the party’s administrative team in the Stormont parliament in Belfast.
The inquest into his death has been delayed at least 19 times, with his family taking legal action against the authorities in Ireland over the delays.
There have been allegations that a journal belonging to Donaldson was found in his cottage and, owing to its politically sensitive contents, the Irish police have consistently applied for postponements of the inquest.
