Sinn Féin has warned that a number of prominent republicans who have been named in the speculation about British agents may take legal action to clear their names.
The party issued its warning as republicans continued to feel the aftershocks of the exposure of former senior Sinn Féin figure Denis Donaldson as a British agent. This has been exacerbated by a stream of rumours circulating in west Belfast and other republican areas about more senior republicans who are in danger of being "outed" as informers.
Well-placed sources said that over the Christmas period the PSNI had warned a number of Belfast republicans that the IRA suspected that they had acted as British agents.
Recently, a number of leading republican figures were named as being included in the speculation surrounding those who might be British agents, which led to Sinn Féin issuing a statement warning of possible defamation actions being taken.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said yesterday that three republicans were currently consulting their solicitors about such cases.
Sinn Féin has portrayed the continuing rumours as "black propaganda" and an attempt by British intelligence to sow confusion and suspicion within Provisional republicanism.
The Sinn Féin-supporting Daily Ireland newspaper last week carried a report of "several senior and respected republicans in Belfast" being warned by the PSNI that they were about to be exposed as informers.
The report added: "The advice from republicans to all those who have received these messages is 'get out on the road, hold your head high, this is designed to confuse and cause panic, don't let it'."
When contacted yesterday, a Belfast Sinn Féin spokesman said he could not comment on the whereabouts of Denis Donaldson, the former Sinn Féin administrator at Stormont, who before Christmas said he had operated as a British agent for 20 years.
The same Daily Ireland story indicated that self-confessed British agent Mr Donaldson was co-operating with Sinn Féin at a de-briefing session somewhere in Ireland. It said that Mr Donaldson reportedly had been "candid" in his accounts of his role as an informer over two decades but was "downplaying the effect his spying activities had on his former colleagues".
