BELFAST -- A high-ranking official of Sinn Fein, the IRA'S political wing, was charged on Sunday with having information "likely to be of use to terrorists" following a series of police raids, police said.

Denis Donaldson, 52, Sinn Fein's parliamentary secretary in the Northern Ireland Parliament, will appear in court on Monday, police said.

Compromising material was found in a raid on his home, police said.

Donaldson was one of four party members arrested Friday in dawn raids on the organization's offices in Belfast and a number of homes.

The other three, two men and a woman, are still in custody, police said.

One of them, a former employee of the British government's Northern Ireland office, is suspected of passing to the IRA confidential documents from Northern Ireland ministers, including military reports and letters to the British and Irish prime ministers.

Photocopying sensitive documents for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a "violation of national security" said a source close to the inquiry.

Under anti-terrorist legislation, suspects can be questioned for five more days before being charged or released.

Sinn Fein, which has organized a series of demonstrations outside Northern Irish police stations during the weekend, demanded the immediate release of the suspects.

This affair, coinciding with the trial in Bogota, Colombia, of three men linked to the IRA accused of collusion with Colombian Carc rebels, has brought the government of Northern Ireland, in which power is shared between Protestants and Roman Catholics, to the edge of collapse.