The chilling charge sheet against him

THE Provisional IRA — of which McGuinness was a kingpin since the early Seventies — murdered 1,778 people, of whom 642 were civilians, 456 British military, 273 Royal Ulster Constabulary, five English police, seven Irish police, 182 members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment and 23 prison officers.

They also murdered 162 IRA members and other republican paramilitaries — many of them informers — and 28 loyalist paramilitaries.

Just 292 IRA members died in the Troubles, nine of them on hunger strike, many from premature explosions, and others were killed as informers.

From 1971, when he became part of a Provisional IRA killing team, McGuinness was involved in attacking soldiers with guns or explosives, some of whom he killed.

As Adjutant and then OC of the Derry Brigade, he ordered murders, punishment beatings, shootings and the tarring and feathering of women who associated with British soldiers.

From 1976, he was Officer in Charge Northern Command and henceforward, when he wasn’t on the run, he had overall responsibility for all operations in Northern Ireland.

From 1978, he was Chief of Staff of the IRA for four years and remained a key figure on the seven-man Army Council — which would have had to approve all major operations — for the rest of his life.

During the four decades when he was ringmaster in Derry, much of the city was destroyed by bombs and there was a mass exodus of Protestants.

Terrified of murders, assaults and sectarian intimidation, they fled from the homes that their families had occupied for generations.

The IRA operated a code of omerta, and it would have been a very brave person who gave evidence against McGuinness.

But in the early Nineties, after a seriously incriminating TV programme, the RUC collected enough evidence for a prosecution. However, this was aborted as the British Government considered McGuinness to be too valuable to the peace process to be brought to justice.