Pictured: The man Gardaí want to interview over Denis Donaldson murder

Sunday World

04-06-2025

Man jailed for plot to kill Johnny Adair and Sam McCrory could hold key to solving 2006 murder
This is the man detectives in Donegal want to interview about the murder of Denis Donaldson, the Sunday World can reveal.
Antoin Duffy (49) from Mullaghduff, near Kincasslagh, is currently serving a 17-year sentence in Scotland for conspiracy to murder top loyalists Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair and Sam 'Skelly' McCrory.
He is a gifted artist whose paintings reach high-end prices on the Irish art market.
However, Duffy and a gang of disparate associates had planned to machine-gun the Belfast men near their homes in Ayrshire.
The murder plot was rumbled, however, when MI5 learned that Duffy had purchased a deadly AK47 rifle to use in the double murder mission.
The powerful rifle was found hidden among Christmas presents in a house in Paisley and Duffy and his mates were charged with conspiracy to murder.
The Sunday World has learned that Duffy now qualifies for parole under Scotland's early prison release scheme.
Anton Duffy, pictured being interviewed by police in 2013 over a plot to kill Johnny Adair
And he could soon be heading back to Donegal, for questioning in relation to the murder of former IRA man and top Sinn Féin aide Denis Donaldson.
The development emerged during a Coroners Court sitting in Letterkenny, when a judge asked a senior Garda officer to account for a lengthy delay in bringing the Donaldson case to court.
The officer informed the judge that DNA evidence had been recovered from the Donaldson murder scene, which was found to be a match for an unnamed man, currently serving a lengthy sentence in another jurisdiction.
And the officer also revealed Garda detectives were in the process of arranging for this individual to be interviewed in Donegal at the earliest opportunity.
Last week, the Sunday World learned Antoin Duffy is now eligible to apply for parole due to having served over half of his 17-year sentence.
And we have also learned the Scottish Prison Authorities may object to Duffy's early release, due to his involvement in a number of disruptive incidents.
Last Saturday, Johnny Adair, who was targeted in Antoin Duffy's murder conspiracy, said he was aware the Donegal man could soon be applying for parole.
He said: 'At this stage, no one knows exactly when Duffy will be applying for parole. But when he does, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens next.'
Former UDA boss Johnny Adair.
'I knew nothing about this man until the police picked me out of a line at Glasgow Airport coming back from holiday.
'I was complaining that I was a victim of police harassment, but the detective took me to an office where two MI5 officers were waiting for me.
'The MI5 men explained they had arrested Antoin Duffy from Donegal for conspiracy to murder Skelly and I.
'It made sense because Skelly and I regularly visited a Belfast man who was in jail with Duffy.
'We both gave evidence at his trial and I came away with the impression Duffy was a dangerous individual, who was capable of anything,' said Adair.
'From now on, it's going to be very interesting in regard to Denis Donaldson.'
Last week, former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams successfully sued the BBC over a Spotlight programme it made which quoted an unnamed source as saying Adams gave the go-ahead for the murder of Denis Donaldson in 2006.
Adams denied any involvement in the Donaldson murder and, in a lengthy five-week libel trial which ended on Friday, he robustly defended his position.
Agreeing Adams had been defamed, a jury awarded him £84,000.
Outside the court in Dublin on Friday, Adams called on the Irish Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan to meet with the Donaldson family as soon as possible.
Former Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA.
He said: 'I am very mindful of the Donaldson family in the course of this long trial and indeed the victims' families who have had to watch all of this.
'I want to say that the Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan should meet the family of Denis Donaldson as quickly as possible and that there's an onus on both governments and everyone else, and I include myself in this, to try and deal with legacy issues as best that we can.'
However, Denis Donaldson's daughter Jane hit out at Adams' legal teams' approach to her evidence.
In a statement also issued on Friday, Jane Donaldson, who is married to a senior Sinn Féin figure, said: 'Although the plaintiff claimed sympathy for my family, his legal team objected to me giving evidence to challenge the account of his witnesses.
Antoin Duffy
'The jury heard sensitive, privileged family information tossed around, without our consent, but did not hear my testimony.
'Limitless legal resources and vast expense were invested in this case, while there is supposedly a live Garda investigation into my daddy's murder.'
And calling for a public inquiry into the matter, she added: 'The public interest can now only be fully served by some form of public inquiry with a cross-border dimension which is ECHIR Article 2 compliant, empowered to investigate the whole truth about the conspiracy to expose and murder my daddy.'
Jane Donaldson also revealed how she gave evidence, but without the presence of the jury.
Denis Donaldson
She said the family did not accept the claim of responsibility issued by the Real IRA, three years after her father was murdered.
And she insisted that her father had been 'thrown to the wolves' as part of a conspiracy to expose him as an agent.
Denis Donaldson and Gerry Adams were among a small group of men who were invited to join the republican movement in the early 1960, shortly after the failure of the IRA's 'Border Campaign'.
They were involved in supporting the campaign for Civil Rights.
But a major split occurred in the Republican movement, and they both sided with the Provisionals and remained close allies.
Denis Donaldson in prison with Bobby Sands in the 1970s
At one stage, Donaldson was even asked to go on an IRA trip to meet rogue Arab State leader Muamar Gaddafi.
They persuaded the Libyan leader to arm the IRA as it geared up for a war with the British over Northern Ireland.
Following the Good Friday Agreement, Donaldson was appointed Head of Administration for Sinn Féin at Stormont.
He was arrested as part of a PSNI inquiry into an alleged Sinn Féin spy ring, but the case was later dropped.
Weeks later, however, Donaldson fronted a televised press conference, where he admitted having been a long-term British agent operating inside Sinn Féin.
And he disappeared without trace.
But in March 2006, a Sunday World investigation traced Donaldson to a remote cottage near Glenties in Co. Donegal.
And in a secretly recorded interview, Donaldson claimed he had been cast aside by his British paymasters in order to 'save David Trimble', the Unionist First Minister who had signed the Good Friday Agreement, which paved the way for the power-sharing government at Stormont.
From the Short Strand in east Belfast, Donaldson was sworn into the IRA at a secret ceremony in Ormeau Park in 1964.
And six years later, he took part in the defence of St Matthew's Catholic Church, holding at bay a mob of loyalists who were intent on burning it to the ground.
But a Historic Enquiries Team (HET) investigation into the death if Henry McIlhone decades later revealed he hadn't been killed by loyalist gunmen as believed.
He had, in fact, been shot dead by Denis Donaldson, who was unable to control a Thompson sub-machine he was firing. In the same incident, Donaldson shot and wounded IRA leader Billy McKee.
Speaking to the Sunday World after the report was published, Henry McIhone's widow Sue said: 'I was told lies about this. I only discover the truth when the HET detectives called to see me.
'Henry wasn't a member of the IRA and I was always told he had been shot bt loyalists. I knew nothing about Denis Donaldson.'