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He added: "The British Broadcasting Corporation upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland, and in my view it's out of sync in many, many fronts with the Good Friday Agreement."

Mr Donaldson was interned without trial for periods in the 1970s and, after signing the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin appointed him as its key administrator in the party's Stormont offices.

"Do they really know what Ireland was like before the Good Friday Agreement?" he asked.

After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin appointed Mr Donaldson as its key administrator in the party's Stormont offices.

He said he was detained by federal authorities in an immigration raid outside a grocery store on Good Friday, a few days before Easter.