Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams was once targeted by loyalists controlled by police special branch and British military intelligence, he claimed today.
Mr Martin McGuinness was also under paramilitary surveillance during the 1980s - but both were never warned, he insisted.
The two republican leaders who met members of the team headed by London Metropolitan Commissioner Sir John Stevens investigating loyalist collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, said they had never been officially alerted of the threat or advised to take security precautions.
He claimed: "I have to say to the best of our recollection, categorically, we were never informed except through the broad media."
The Sinn Fein president was badly wounded when loyalist gunmen ambushed his car close Belfast city centre in March 1984.
Michael Stone, who gunned down three mourners at an IRA funeral at the city's Milltown Cemetery in March l988 had also planned to murder Mr McGuinness the same day.
He also plotted to shoot him outside a newsagents in Derry but called off the attack at the last minute.
The Stevens team's report into the murder of Mr Finucane who was shot dead in front of his wife and family at their home in North Belfast in 1988 has been delayed until next Spring.
Mr Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the new police service of Northern Ireland is a former member of the Stevens team.
It has been claimed that several top loyalist paramilitaries were heavily involved in the murder.
Nobody has ever been convicted of the killing and at Stormont today, where Mr Adams met the Stevens team, the Sinn Fein president claimed loyalists working with the RUC special branch and military intelligence had targeted him and Mr McGuinness as well.
He said: "This is the first time in my recollection we have received a specific request to meet. It follows requests by them to meet us individually because we were among a number of people who were being targeted for killing by loyalists working and being handled by elements of British military intelligence and the RUC Special Branch.
"They basically wanted to ascertain from us during defined periods were we informed by the RUC we were being targeted, and whether we were given advice, help or assistance to take precautions.
"I have to say to the best of our recollections, categorically, we were never informed except through the broad media."
PA