Three men acquitted in Belfast yesterday of involvement in an alleged IRA spy ring at Stormont returned to Parliament Buildings this morning accompanied by senior members of Sinn Féin.
The Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, said he believed the charges were part of a pattern of what he called political policing in Northern Ireland.
Denis Donaldson was Sinn Fein's head of administration at Stormont at the time of the police raid.
He says the charges against him, his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and a third man, civil servant William Mackessy, had been made as part of a campaign to save the political career of the then Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble.
Three years ago, police investigating an alleged IRA spy ring at Stormont had raided Sinn Féin's offices.
With threats by unionists to withdraw from the power-sharing Executive, the British government suspended devolution and re-introduced direct rule.
