A senior Sinn Féin politician has issued the most unambiguous and unequivocal republican statement to date that the IRA was not responsible for the Castlereagh break-in and that it does not have the information contained in the stolen confidential documents.
Mr Gerry Kelly, Sinn Féin MLA, yesterday blamed British intelligence for the St Patrick's Day theft at the Castlereagh Special Branch offices of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). He claimed British intelligence was involved in a "double cover-up": to blame the IRA, and to remove information damaging to the intelligence agencies.
Security sources have persisted in their claim that the IRA was involved in the theft of the files that could threaten the security of Special Branch officers and possibly their informants. This allegation was repeated by a senior source yesterday despite Mr Kelly's assertions.
Some IRA sources also said a former civilian employee at Castlereagh police station had republican connections.
There has been speculation that the IRA was carefully attempting to establish a protective deniability factor whereby if it did emerge that the IRA had access to the documents it could claim it received them from a source outside the organisation.
But Mr Kelly at a press conference in west Belfast dealt with both these elements of what is proving to be a puzzling break-in.
"I am absolutely satisfied that they are not involved," said Mr Kelly when asked if the IRA was responsible.
"I am absolutely convinced that what we are dealing with is a cover-up from the intelligence agencies.
"The only thing I can't point the finger at is which agency it is," he added.
When asked by The Irish Times if he was equally satisfied the IRA did not now have the information, Mr Kelly replied, "Well, yes. What purpose would British intelligence agencies have in giving it over (to the IRA)?" He said British intelligence was trying to cover up a wide "range of illegal acts which we believe in terms of Special Branch involved human rights abuses, torture, shoot-to-kill, and all the policies which they have been involved in". "There was a massive PR attempt to throw the blame on someone else," he said.
There were also fears that the information might end up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries, Mr Kelly added.
It is understood that documents containing the names and addresses of Special Branch officers, the code names of informants, and messages from the informants to the officers, were stolen in the raid.
This triggered security concerns for the Special Branch officers and their families, some of whom may be forced to move homes.
There are also concerns that paramilitaries could deduce from the documents the identity of informants, some of whom are said to be highly placed in the IRA, UVF, UDA and other groupings.
