The man named in various newspapers as the British agent 'Stakeknife', Mr Freddie Scappaticci, has stated that he will not leave Ireland.
In an interview with the Anderstown Newstoday, Mr Scappaticci once again denied the media reports that cast him as 'Stakeknife', and expressed his wish to meet the families of "the people that they said I murdered".
"When I do I will stand in front of them and say, 'I didn't do it. I had no part in it', And I will look them straight in the eye when I do it," he said.
"People that know me know I haven't been involved. The republican movement knows me, they know how ridiculous it all is. I hardly ever go out, I don't drink and I don't socialise in republican circles. When I read the allegations I was physically sick, just sick," he said.
Despite what he described as the "devastating" situation into which he and his family had been plunged over the last week, the 57-year-old builder said that he had no plans to leave the country.
"I will be staying in Ireland, I'm telling you that. I'll be staying in Ireland, but where I don't know yet. It's too early to say. I want to get my life back. I don't want to put my family through anything any more. If I went back to live in Riverdale, I know at some stage these gutter journalists are going to come back and ask me for my story, and I don't want to put my family in the firing line."
"Everything's up in the air," he added.
In the interview, Mr Scappaticci also revealed his whereabouts in early days of last week, after the story broke - the details of which had been the subject of much speculation in the Irish and British media.
"[After reading the papers on Sunday] I got into the car and went to a friend's house, in Belfast, but not in west Belfast. I contacted my brother and he contacted Sinn Féin . . . my brother arranged for me to meet my solicitor, which I did, on the Monday. It was done in absolute secrecy in case the press would have been following him.
"My solicitor then issued a statement…and arranged for a press conference on the Wednesday. The reason I left my home was to protect my family and to protect my anonymity. We are private people," he added.
Mr Scappaticci also claims that he has had no active involvement in republican circles since 1990, when he left Belfast following the what he dubbed "the Sandy Lynch thing" - the kidnap and interrogation of an alleged British informer by the IRA.
"I then went to live in Dublin [but] because of the traumatic effect it was having on my family I came back, got work, rebuilt my family.
"To suggest that I was at the heart of the peace process, doing this Machiavellian stuff, that I had the ear of Gerry Adams, in there for British intelligence is so ridiculous it's just unbelievable," he said.
Asked if he was ever employed by British intelligence, or had ever passed on information to British intelligence, Mr Scappaticci was unambiguous.
"Never," he stated.
However, reports in today's papers indicate that Provisional IRA members in Belfast remain unconvinced Mr Scappaticci is not 'Stakeknife', despite the Sinn Fein leadership's insistence that he must be treated as innocent until proven guilty.