Senior Belfast-based PSNI officers are conducting a "politically motivated" campaign against Sinn Féin, the party's president, Mr Gerry Adams, has declared.
The decision to use 200 police officers to launch a high-profile raid of the Sinn Féin Stormont office was not taken by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Dr John Reid, or the PSNI Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde.
Instead, the decision to raid was taken by senior Belfast officers. "I strongly suspect the level it was taken," Mr Adams told a Dublin press conference.
"Do people think that we are stupid? That is an open office. All of the offices there are open," said Mr Adams, adding that Sinn Féin is prepared to publish the contents of the discs seized by police.
The impact of the PSNI raid on Sinn Féin's Stormont offices has been "devastating" upon moderate unionism and has thrown the efforts to progress the Good Friday agreement into crisis.
Urging NI politicians to stick by the agreement, he said that all parties, including Sinn Féin, have had adequate reasons to quit at times since its signature five years ago.
"We have dealt with unionism in good faith in circumstances where they can be quite difficult people to deal with. The mark of politicians of our generation is whether we have the character and tenacity to stay committed to this.
"Whatever happens, we will have to put this back together again. We will have to return to this template. The future has to be about the future," he told a press conference in Dublin.
He ridiculed allegations by the SDLP deputy leader, Mrs Bríd Rodgers, who said she believed Sinn Féin had improperly garnered political intelligence about her party's contacts with London.
