MI5 agent David Rupert tried to get the Continuity IRA (CIRA) to procure biological weapons, The Sunday Business Post has learned. The breakaway republican group eventually declined Rupert's overtures, but the informant is believed to have succeeded in smuggling arms from the United States into Ireland, with the full knowledge of MI5, in 1997. The American was operating as an agent for the British security service from a base in Donegal without authorisation from the Irish government. The Garda was also not informed. This newspaper has seen a series of e-mails which were sent by Rupert to his MI5 handlers in which he outlined his extraordinary efforts to inveigle himself into the CIRA hierarchy between 1993 and 1998. "I had outlined the weapons deals briefly in the US," Rupert wrote in one e-mail sent to his MI5 handler in 1998. "I talked about the computer deal and then the big one, biologicals. I said I understand they are quite easy to get in the US as a laboratory experiment type deal. They were interested." The 51-year-old Rupert is now on the Witness Protection Programme in the United States waiting to give evidence in the trial of Michael McKevitt, the alleged leader of the Real IRA. McKevitt is expected to go on trial early next year in the Special Criminal Court on charges of directing terrorism. Related article: North's MI5 man in bizarre chemical weapons plot MI5 spy in North enquired about biological weapons MI5 agent David Rupert tried to get the Continuity IRA (CIRA) to procure biological weapons.....( Sunday Business Post, 2 Sep 02) "I had outlined the weapons deals briefly in the US, I talked about the computer deal and then the big one, biologicals. I said I understand they are quite easy to get in the US as a laboratory experiment type deal. They were interested." --MI5 spy David Rupert in an e-mail sent to his MI5 handler in 1998 on his attempts to convince the Continuity IRA to procure biological weapons from the United states