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Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:36:31 -0400
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Stormontgate and the informer who wasn't exposed
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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=686508
Stormontgate and the informer who wasn't exposed
One spy brutally murdered, a government brought down and tens of
millions spent tightening security. Security expert BRIAN ROWAN tells
the story of Operation Torsion, aka the Stormontgate affair
11 April 2006
Inside the files of the Special Branch are the hidden details of
Stormontgate and of the bugging and surveillance operation that led
to Denis Donaldson's arrest.
Some of the secrets of the "dirty war" were buried in the grave of
the murdered agent last weekend, but there is another informer -
someone else who revealed the IRA's alleged intelligence-gathering
activities inside government offices, including the NIO.
This is the story of Operation Torsion as told to me from inside the
intelligence world - a story of a sportsman, of another man who went
to work for the Special Branch after a falling out with a senior
republican and of a plan to try to capture the IRA's director of intelligence.
The Special Branch did not need Denis Donaldson to tell them the
story of Stormontgate - they already knew it long before the Belfast
republican was arrested in October 2002.
Indeed, it is possible that Donaldson had no knowledge of the alleged
intelligence-gathering activities, and it is also possible that he
said nothing about the Stormontgate documents when they were
eventually moved to his house in order to protect the person who left
them there.
The bugging and surveillance operation - codenamed Torsion - involved
the Special Branch and MI5.
It stretched out over a period of some months and ended in the
arrests of Donaldson and several others in October 2002.
According to an intelligence source, the target house during Torsion
was the home of a sportsman in west Belfast.
In the account I have been given, it was here that the Stormontgate
documents were being kept before they were moved to Donaldson's house.
The sportsman did not know that he and his home were under
surveillance - that the Special Branch was "baby sitting" him.
An informer, a covert human intelligence source, had revealed the
hiding place of the papers.
I have been told that his motivation for doing so was a falling out
with a senior republican over money - said to be several thousand pounds.
While the sportsman trained and competed, his home was wide open to
the Special Branch. They got inside using "alternative means of entry".
At one point, the documents were removed, photocopied at police
headquarters in Belfast, and then returned to the sportsman's home.
They were in a bag under a bed. During Operation Torsion, that bag is
said to have been replaced with another that had been fitted with a
locator bug.
The sportsman knew nothing about this. All of this happened before
the papers were moved to Donaldson's home.
When the documents were moved to Donaldson's home, the Special Branch
knew they were there, but not because he had told them.
Their knowledge stemmed from the bugging and surveillance of Operation Torsion.
Had Donaldson told his handlers, then the suggestion is he would not
have been arrested. The Branch would have allowed the bag to have
been moved once more.
The target of Operation Torsion was the IRA's director of
intelligence - the man the Special Branch believed had masterminded
the robbery at its Castlereagh offices in 2002.
The hope inside the intelligence world was that he would walk into
the surveillance net, but he did not.
Donaldson and others were arrested, but in December last year, the
Stormontgate case collapsed.
There were two informers - the man who had first revealed the
existence of the Stormontgate documents, and Donaldson who had been
one of their human listening devices inside Sinn Fein.
In an interview with one of my colleagues after the case collapsed,
Donaldson thanked me for revealing the details of the Special Branch
operation, but he was keeping a huge secret - the fact that he was an agent.
We still do not know why he revealed himself as an informer.
Who outed the Belfast republican? Why did he feel the need to own up
to something that he had been able to conceal for more than 20 years?
We will never know.
Republicans believe that Stormontgate was manufactured by the
"securocrats" and that Donaldson was a part of it.
But Operation Torsion offers another explanation. There is another
informer - a man who has not been exposed - who still carries the
story and the secrets of Stormontgate.
Timeline
2002
October 4
Police launch dawn raids on homes in Belfast and a Sinn Fein office
at Stormont as part of a probe into alleged IRA penetration of the
NIO. Four people arrested, including Denis Donaldson.
October 5
Republicans stage protests outside police stations describing
operation as "organised, politicised, media-orientated event".
October 7
Donaldson held on remand after being charged with having documents
likely to be of use to terrorists. The documents were found in a
rucksack at his home in west Belfast. Martin McGuinness said there
was no doubt Donaldson was innocent.
October 15
Assembly suspended at midnight.
November 20
A request for bail by Donaldson was turned down by Belfast High Court.
December 20
Donaldson released on bail.
2005
December 8
Spy charges against Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and
civil servant William Mackessy, are dropped. Prosecutors said it was
no longer in the public interest to pursue a case.
December 17
Donaldson expelled from Sinn Fein after he admitted working as a paid
agent for the British.
2006
April 4
Donaldson shot dead in Co Donegal.
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