No leads in pursuit of Donaldson killer
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
GARDAÍ have drawn a blank in the hunt for the killer of British spy and Sinn Féin administrator Denis Donaldson.
The admission came as a fresh appeal was issued for help in solving the murder. Officers said they wanted to speak to anybody who was near Donaldson’s home in Cloghercor in Co. Donegal last April 3 or the following day.
But senior officers admitted they were no nearer finding those responsible for the brutal shooting.
The Provisional IRA, dissident Republican groups, Loyalists and the British security services have all been variously blamed for the killing. But gardaí said inquiries carried out jointly by themselves and the Police Service of Northern Ireland had so far uncovered no evidence to substantiate any of the theories.
The new appeal is also aimed at people who might have been in the area around Cloghercor or on the road between Gweebarra Bridge and Doochary the week before the murder and who have not so far been interviewed. GardaÌ asked anybody with information about unusual movements of either people or vehicles in the area to contact them.
Detectives are satisfied Donaldson believed he would not be shot dead by the Provisionals as revenge for acting as a spy for the security services in the North over the past two decades. His family also issued a statement days after the murder saying they did not believe that the IRA was responsible.
But they have not ruled out the theory that associates of IRA members who had been betrayed by Donaldson to the security forces may have been behind the murder.
He may also have been targeted by maverick Republicans for personal reasons linked to his past, or the longheld belief among hardliners that spies should be killed.
Gardaí have already spoken to those living within several miles of the cottage which Donaldson had been using as his hideout since he was unmasked as a British agent at a Sinn Féin press conference in Dublin last December.
The reasons for his confession have never been fully explained, despite several theories. There have been suggestions that in recent years he had acted as a double agent. Donaldson was shot four times in the chest, face, arm and hand in the cottage five miles from Glenties.
