Sinn Féin has accused PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde of being "deliberately misleading" by claiming there was no political motivation to the police role in the "Stormontgate" affair.
Sir Hugh said today the raid on Sinn Féin's offices in Stormont three years ago was part of a criminal investigation. Television crews were at the scene before police raided the office gathering evidence of an alleged IRA spy-ring at Stormont.
Sir Hugh insisted that among the documents recovered in the investigation were transcripts of conversations between British prime minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.
However, these documents were not recovered from Assembly buildings but from the home of Sinn Féin's chief administrative officer at Stormont, Denis Donaldson. Mr Donaldson last week admitted he was a British spy and that the spy-ring claim was a "fiction".
Sir Hugh said on Radio Ulster today: "On October 4th we searched property in west Belfast and recovered hundreds of pages of documents. I am looking at some of them now. These documents exist. They are real. Most have sensitive information targeted against politicians, against civil servants, against members of the police service, against members of the prison service."
"There is also a large number of documents relating, for example, to discussions between the prime minister and the president of the United States, discussions between government and the Northern Ireland political parties, with the exception of Sinn Féin - we have not recovered anything in relation to that party.
"There are documents taken from the Parades Commission. It's a large number of documents which exist. We have them in our possession and as a result, police had a limited search of one office at Stormont and two discs were taken as part of that investigation."
Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly, who was at the party's offices at the time of the Stormont raids, said Sir Hugh was attempting to justify the police Special Branch's deliberate - and successful designed to collapse "democratically elected institutions".
"What Hugh Orde neglects to tell the public is that the documents were recovered from the home of Special Branch agent Denis Donaldson. Denis Donaldson was at the heart of a British spy ring and a securocrat conspiracy which brought down the elected government.
"He was not acting on behalf of republicans or our peace process agenda. He was at all times working to the agenda set by the British State who employed him."
Mr Donaldson was arrested in October 2002 and accused, along with his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and civil servant William Mackessy, of operating a spy ring which resulted in hundreds of documents falling into republican hands.
Twelve days ago, the North's Public Prosecution Service told Belfast Crown Court it was dropping the case against the three men because it was no longer in the public interest.
Last Friday, Mr Donaldson was expelled from Sinn Féin after he confessed to being a police and British army spy for 20 years.
"Attempting to justify the raid on the Stormont offices and the collapse of a democratically elected government will not advance the agenda of creating an acceptable and accountable policing service. Hugh Orde is being deliberately misleading in his comments concerning this entire episode," Mr Kelly said.
Northern Secretary Peter Hain yesterday maintained the police operation at Stormont and the seizure of documents at Mr Donaldson's house was legitimate and ruled out any public inquiry into the scandal, despite calls from across the North's political sepctrum.
Democratic Unionist MP Nigel Dodds said the Chief Constable's comments today had strengthened the argument for a full statement from the Government.
"It seems from his comments today that Hugh Orde is clearly angry that IRA/Sinn Féin are able to wriggle out of responsibility for the spy ring at Stormont," Mr Dodds said.
While he welcomed Sir Hugh's intervention, he said the Chief Constable had not explained why, given the clear evidence of criminal activity, no-one was prosecuted for any offence.
Additional reporting PA