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A racist Scottish nationalist once linked to a notorious tartan terrorist has passed the SNP’s vetting process for council candidates.

Sonja Cameron was suspended from the party for two years – but later let back in – after a court conviction over her role in sinister anti-English group Settler Watch.

She was also a friend of terrorist Andrew McIntosh of the so-called Scottish National Liberation Army, who was jailed for 12 years for a hoax bombing campaign.

But despite Cameron’s history of extremism, we have learned that she could be chosen as one of her party’s candidates for Stirling Council. Party bosses have approved her as a potential contender for May’s elections.

German-born Cameron, 53, called herself Sonja Vathjunker when she was a leading member of Settler Watch in the 1990s.

The small, shadowy group of extremists ran a hate campaign against English people who moved to Scotland, branding them “white settlers” and ordering them to go back where they came from.

Racist posters appeared on Deeside and homes in Inverness were daubed with graffiti. Settler Watch bigots also sent abusive mail to English people and threatened families.

Cameron landed in the dock in 1993 after police on Deeside caught her in a car loaded with 300 Settler Watch posters.

She was convicted over her involvement in the anti-English propaganda campaign and fined £80 at Kincardine and Deeside District Court.

The case also helped lead police to McIntosh – because Cameron was driving his red Vauxhall Nova when she was caught.

It was the first time police had connected McIntosh to Settler Watch. They put him under surveillance because of his extreme views and gathered the evidence needed to convict him over his terror campaign.

The High Court in Aberdeen heard in August 1993 how McIntosh spread fear and disruption by placing bombs outside oil offices and sending letter bombs to the Scottish Office in Edinburgh. He got 12 years and served six.

McIntosh was later arrested again, this time on firearms charges, and was found hanged in his cell in 2004.

He joined the SNLA after it was founded in the wake of the 1979 devolution referendum by another fanatic, Adam Busby.

Busby claimed the referendum vote had been fixed.

After Cameron’s 1993 conviction, MPs signed a House of Commons early day motion calling on the SNP to “match its anti-racist rhetoric with appropriate action” and expel her from the party for life.

But she was quietly readmitted in 1996.

She has held a number of low-level positions in local branches since – and has been photographed at party events with Scottish Government Economy Secretary Keith Brown and MPs Steven Paterson and John Nicholson.

Michael Russell, now the Scottish Government’s Brexit minister, was SNP chief executive when Cameron was reinstated. He said at the time: “Once the suspension ends, as far as we are concerned the slate is wiped clean.”

The SNP insisted yesterday that Cameron is a reformed character.

A party spokesman said: “She deeply regrets what happened 23 years ago. Her behaviour back then is entirely at odds with the way she conducts herself today.”

Cameron herself refused to comment and referred all questions to the SNP.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “It beggars belief that the SNP think this is a suitable candidate for a council election.

“Scotland is divided enough. The last thing local communities need is councillors who will divide them even further.

“There looks to be a real problem with SNP vetting, even at this early stage of the council elections.”

The SNP were already under fire after a party aide made the council candidates’ list despite posting pro-IRA messages on social media.

Allan Casey, an assistant to Glasgow Provan MSP Ivan McKee, wrote “Up the Provos” on Facebook and praised former IRA members. He could now fight a council seat in Glasgow.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon apologised this month to the families of three Scots soldiers murdered by the IRA in 1971 after Glasgow MSP John Mason said some people saw IRA killers as “freedom fighters”. She also reprimanded Mason.