McGuinness in new spy claims

Martin McGuinness denies spying for MI6. So how has he survived when those around him have been shot or jailed, asks Liam Clarke

timesonline: Raymond Gilmore, the "supergrass" who infiltrated the IRA in the early 1980s, used to wake up screaming following nightmares that Martin McGuinness was about to shoot him. But now he suspects his life was protected by his former IRA commander and that McGuinness, like him, was a British agent.

"I could never understand how I was allowed to run so long and do so much damage. Now I suspect that McGuinness was looking out for me," said Gilmour, who penetrated the IRA and the smaller Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) between 1977 and 1982.

Gilmour isn't alone in his suspicions. All over Northern Ireland people are reassessing McGuinness's career in the wake of newspaper claims by Martin Ingram, a former military intelligence officer, that the man once regarded as an IRA hawk had been controlled by MI6 for at least two decades. A retired RUC special branch officer believes McGuinness was the MI5 agent code-named "Fisherman", though others maintain that this agent may have been a person close to McGuinness.

Republican veterans point to the "charmed existence" enjoyed by McGuinness. He has held every senior position in the Provisional IRA since its inception, but has never been shot or injured nor served a serious prison sentence in the UK. Read more