A protestant paramilitary group wrote to former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey to warn him that MI5 had asked them to assassinate him, according to newly disclosed documents.

The Ulster Volunteer Force – a loyalist group classified as a terrorist organisation by the UK – contacted Haughey during his third term as Taoiseach in 1987, claiming that two years earlier, an MI5 agent had provided information about his home, his cars and the yacht he used to reach his private island, and encouraged them to assassinate him.

The previously classified government documents were released under the thirty-year rule.

“In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO [Northern Ireland office] and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name,” the UVF letter said. “He asked us to execute you.”

…The agent was said to have provided extensive information about Haughey’s vehicles, along with photographs of his home, details of his trips to Kerry airport, and pictures of the plane he used

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