Governments suspect IRA didn't sanction spy's killing

The Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said his government had no intelligence about who killed Denis Donaldson, the veteran republican who was shot dead in Donegal earlier this week.

Theories abound about who carried out the shooting of Donaldson, who last December was unmasked as a long-time Special Branch agent within Sinn Fein and the IRA.

He was killed by four blasts fired from a shotgun in a remote cottage in Donegal in the Irish Republic, dying instantly. The IRA denied killing him and no one has admitted responsibility for the murder.

Mr Ahern said yesterday: "We have no intelligence, no information, to indicate whether, as I said in the Dail, it is retribution for some past event or some falling out along the way, or whether it is some dissident group.

"We don't know and we will do everything we can to try and find that out. It is important to do so in any murder, but I think it is important in this one also."

Although there are no certainties in the matter, both London and Dublin tend not to believe that the killing was carried out with the authorisation of the IRA's ruling army council.

This is primarily because of the damage the incident has inflicted both on the IRA and Sinn Fein, and because it will make Sinn Fein's ambition to form a new government with the Rev Ian Paisley much more difficult to realise.

With so far a complete absence of intelligence, as reported by Mr Ahern, attention has focused on the idea that he was killed by republicans who are either members or former members of the IRA.

Some tend to believe that someone within IRA ranks decided that Donaldson's undercover activities had earned him a death penalty, possibly because in his 20-year career as an informer for Special Branch he must have put many republicans behind bars.

Whoever was responsible, they are regarded as being either indifferent to the fortunes of Sinn Fein, or opposed to the course of the peace process.

The killing was carried out in a clinical and cold-blooded manner which suggests those involved had experience in previous terrorist activities.

Tony Blair said yesterday: "Whoever is responsible for anything that is against the law we will pursue with the full rigour of the law and we expect everyone to support us and work with us in that endeavour."