Belfast
A high official in the Sinn Fein political party has been charged with spying after a police raid on his home turned up hundreds of secret government documents. Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein’s chief administrator in the Northern Irish legislature, had the names and addresses of officials from the rival Ulster Unionists as well as security briefings on meetings between the British and Irish prime ministers. Such details “could be used by terrorists” from the Irish Republican Army, the police said. Former IRA chief Martin McGuinness, now a minister in the Northern Irish government, said it was hypocritical to accuse Sinn Fein officials of spying when the British government had been tapping their phones for years.
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