LAST UPDATE | 5 hrs ago

A 49-YEAR-OLD man has been charged at the Special Criminal Court with the murder of Denis Donaldson, a former member of the Provisional IRA and senior Sinn Féin official who was exposed as an MI5 informant months before he was shot dead in Donegal.

Antoin Duffy, of Braade, Kincasslagh, Co Donegal appeared before the three-judge, non-jury court having been extradited from Scotland earlier today with the help of the Irish Air Corps.

He is charged with six offences, including Donaldson’s murder and a separate attempted murder of a man named Liam McGinley on 19 November 2007 at Meenaboll, Churchill in Donegal.

Det Gda Adrian Aherne today told the court that he arrested Duffy at 1.22pm at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnell in Dublin.

At 2.35pm, Aherne said he again met Duffy at the cell area of the Criminal Courts of Justice building and handed him a copy of the charge sheet.

A solicitor for the State applied for an order to have Duffy tried on all six charges at the non-jury court.

In relation to the murder and attempted murder charges, the solicitor said the Director of Public Prosecutions had certified that the ordinary courts are not adequate to hear the trial.

Mr Justice Patrick McGrath, presiding, agreed to make the order.

The court registrar read the charges to Duffy, who spoke only to confirm his identity. He is charged with possession of a shotgun and ammunition with intent to endanger life between 3 and 4 April 2006 at Cloghercor, Doochary, near the Glenties in Donegal.

On the same date and at the same location, he is charged with Donaldson’s murder.

He is further charged with possession of a shotgun and ammunition with intent to endanger life at Churchill in Donegal on 19 November 2007. On the same date and at the same location, he is charged with the attempted murder of Liam McGinley.

Duffy, who is originally from Donegal, has been in prison in Scotland following his conviction there in 2015 for his part in a plot to murder members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Gardaí issued a press release earlier today, saying that members of the Donegal Division investigating Donaldson’s murder had arrested a man in his late 40s following his extradition from Scotland.

The arrest was carried out with the assistance of An Garda Síochána Extradition Unit, Garda National Bureau of Investigation and the Irish Air Corps.

Denis Donaldson was a former member of the Provisional IRA and a high-ranking Sinn Féin official. He associated with senior members of the party, including former party president Gerry Adams.

His fatal shooting at the age of 55 has been under investigation for nearly 20 years. In 2002, when Donaldson was Sinn Féin’s top administrator working in the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont, he was charged with involvement in an alleged spy ring.

Three years later, the charges were dropped and within days, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) informed Donaldson that he was about to be exposed in the media as an MI5 informer.

Donaldson met with senior republicans and admitted that he had been working for the British intelligence unit, MI5, and the Special Branch unit of the RUC for more than 20 years.

On 16 December 2005, Donaldson held a press conference in Dublin in which he publicly acknowledged his role as a double agent.

He removed himself from public life and went to live at an isolated cottage near the Glenties in south-west Donegal, where he was shot dead on 4 April 2006.

The dissident republican organisation, calling itself the Real IRA, later claimed responsibility for the murder.