A report found Britain's top agent inside the IRA, Stakeknife, was implicated in 14 murders and 15 abductions. Photo / Getty Images
Britain’s top agent inside the IRA was implicated in 14 murders and 15 abductions, a damning report has found.
Stakeknife, widely believed to be Freddie Scappaticci, was shielded by security services as he acted as an IRA executioner with the knowledge of MI5, according to a nine-year investigation.
Operation Kenova also found that MI5 was aware of the identity of Stakeknife, who spied for the Army, from the “outset”, and knew about his involvement in a notorious IRA death squad. The rogue agent was also twice taken “on holiday” by Army handlers when they knew he was wanted for murder, it was found.
The report said that new evidence undermined previous claims MI5 had only a “peripheral” role in connection with Stakeknife and that it was in fact “closely involved”.
It found that new files handed over supported evidence from a former Army officer that “everything done with Stakeknife was done with MI5’s knowledge and consent”.
“The newly released files support this account... MI5 had automatic sight of all Stakeknife intelligence and therefore was aware of his involvement in serious criminality.”
It said that from the outset, MI5 was aware of his identity, role within the IRA’s Internal Security Unit (ISU) and his “involvement in the abduction and interrogation of suspected agents who were then murdered”.
For years, security services and army officers had protected Stakeknife, believing his intelligence was vital and was allegedly responsible for saving many lives.
Senior Army figures treated him as the “crown jewel” of British intelligence, and he had a reputation as “the goose that laid the golden eggs”.
However, an interim report last year found that Stakeknife probably cost more lives than he saved and that some “on the inside” of the security forces viewed him “through rose-tinted spectacles”.
His reputation should have raised alarm bells because the comparison was “rooted in fables and fairy tales”.
Tuesday’s 164-page report by Sir Iain Livingstone, the former chief constable of Police Scotland, details how Stakeknife executed and abducted victims with the knowledge of the British Army.
Stakeknife was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds as he worked secretly for the British Army while he was part of the IRA’s ISU, which tortured and killed suspected informants.
The ISU became known as the “Nutting Squad”, a nickname derived from the method of killing suspected informants with a shot to the back of the head.
Stakeknife kidnapped, tortured and killed victims while passing on intelligence about the IRA and was recruited by the Force Research Unit (FRU), a covert intelligence section of the British military intelligence corps. However, much of his intelligence was unreliable.
He was unmasked in the media in 2003 and was relocated by MI5 to England, where he lived in a detached house in Surrey and drove a Mercedes.
Scappaticci died in 2023 aged 77, but MI5 has still refused to confirm that the former bricklayer was Stakeknife, adopting a neither confirm nor deny (NCND) approach. This is despite his identity being so well known that Scappaticci told his wife and a “female associate” that he was Stakeknife.
Addressing his findings, Livingstone called for the Government to name Stakeknife and make an exception to neither confirm nor deny policies adopted by security services.
“Having spent my life in policing and justice, I support NCND and know its value,” he said.
“Although the policy’s definition and use require review, Kenova has no intention to undermine NCND. However, NCND must be exercised in a proportionate and necessary manner and should not be an absolute bar to providing truth and justice. It cannot be used to protect agents who commit grotesque, serious crimes, leaving victims and families ignored and their demands for information and answers dismissed.
“As this final report makes clear, we in Kenova believe there is a compelling ethical case for the UK government to derogate from the NCND policy regarding the agent Stakeknife’s identity. It is in the public interest that Stakeknife is named.”
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said there was “no good reason” why the identity of Stakeknife could not be revealed.
Responding to the publication of the final report of Operation Kenova, Boutcher said: “I stated in the interim report that the identity of the Army agent Stakeknife would have to be confirmed at some stage and made clear that this would benefit and not harm the public interest.”
Boutcher added: “As explained in the final report, the identity of Stakeknife still cannot be confirmed and the full story of his operation still cannot be told, more than 30 years after he stopped providing intelligence.
“This outcome was imposed on Kenova by the Government for no good reason and I know it will be a great disappointment to the families affected and cause them further pain and suffering.”
Boutcher said that the Government’s refusal to name MI5 agent Stakeknife “is untenable and bordering on farce”.
He said the identity of Stakeknife should be “officially confirmed” and that an exception should be made to deviate from its Neither Confirm Nor Deny (NCND) policy for agents.
Boutcher said the refusal to allow him to confirm whether Freddie Scappaticci was Stakeknife was having a profound impact on victims.
“The Government’s refusal to allow Kenova to confirm whether or not Scappaticci was Stakeknife means that this final report cannot go into public detail about the crimes it investigated,” he said.
“When I was in charge of Kenova, I was often asked, why can’t you report on what Stakeknife did, but without naming him?
“Unfortunately, any attempt to do this would face Government security objections.
“The IRA’s internal security unit was not large, and a lot is publicly known about the activities and the movements of Scappaticci
“Any report connecting Stakeknife with particular dates, places or victims would quickly reveal whether or not he was Scappaticci.
“As a result, the truth is still being unnecessarily suppressed decades after the events in question and this is having a profound and severe adverse impact on victims and families, legitimate public discussion and debate, media freedom, open justice and public confidence in state agencies and the criminal justice system.”
Boutcher added that the late release by MI5 of additional files relating to Stakeknife was “deeply frustrating” and represented a “serious organisational failure”.
He said the additional material, which was shared eight years after the independent Kenova investigation began, showed MI5 had “greater and earlier knowledge” of Stakeknife than was previously known.
Boutcher said the late release of files “delayed the publication of this final report and undermined the confidence of families and stakeholders in the process”.
The report found that MI5 had “earlier and greater knowledge of the agent than previously stated”.
The £40m investigation revealed how the Army set up a “round the clock” phone line for Stakeknife’s intelligence and an office dedicated to the agent known as “The Rat Hole”.
It created a database for his intelligence known as Bog Rat 3970 or “Osbourne”, which has not been recovered.
Although his intelligence was prolific, totalling 3517 reports including 377 in an 18-month period, it was often unreliable. MI5’s handlers service had expressed reservations that he was “unreliable”, but Kenova found “no evidence” that these concerns were escalated.
Detailing the murders and abductions Stakeknife was involved in, the report said that he authorised and carried out killings as part of the IRA.
It revealed that in some cases, Stakeknife played a central role in securing “confessions” from victims at IRA “court martials”, with the British Army “aware” victims could be murdered, and information was not passed on to police.
In one case, the FRU was handed information that a victim was “sentenced to death” three days before their body was discovered.
In another, he “played an active role” in extracting a signed confession and “actively sought an execution decision” from the Provisional IRA’s Army Council.
Stakeknife “played a role” in the shooting and bludgeoning of a victim, but this was “not dealt with appropriately” by his FRU handlers.
At times, the FRU and Royal Ulster Constabulary were aware that victims were in danger, but failed to pass this on, while in other instances, Stakeknife “authorised” the execution of alleged informants.
The report also reveals extraordinary plans by the Army to hold a “Farewell Dinner”, including a list of attendees and a venue for Stakeknife as they prepared to extract him in the 1990s.
This was abandoned, but the report said that the fact it was even considered showed a “significant breach of the demarcation that should exist between an agent and their handlers”.
The report outlined that the late discovery of files by MI5 led to lost investigative opportunities and that MI5 had earlier and greater knowledge of the agent than previously stated.
Livingstone said: “While the information in the additional files would not have altered prosecutorial decisions, further investigative opportunities were undoubtedly lost.
“The very fact that material owned and held by MI5 was not timeously disclosed understandably undermined the confidence of communities that state authorities had co-operated fully with Kenova. It was a significant failure on the part of MI5.”
The report said that delays in handing over evidence by MI5 appeared to be attempts to “conceal the truth” about Stakeknife.
“The revelation of the further MI5 material in April 2024 and its provision to Kenova the following month was the culmination of several incidents capable of being negatively construed as attempts by MI5 to restrict the investigation, run down the clock, avoid any prosecutions relating to Stakeknife and conceal the truth,” it said.
Sir Ken McCallum, the MI5 director general, offered sympathies “to the victims and families of those who were tortured or killed by the Provisional IRA’s Internal Security Unit during the Troubles” following the publication of the report.
He said: “MI5 retrieved and provided to the Kenova investigation a very large volume of historical records.
“Regrettably, after this extensive disclosure process was complete, we discovered additional relevant information.
“MI5 informed Kenova and shared the material without delay.
“I apologised to Sir Iain Livingstone, and asked former Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball QPM to conduct an independent review to establish why the additional material had not been initially found.
“This review concluded that none of the material was deliberately withheld, but made recommendations on how MI5 could improve its processes for the future.
“MI5 is now implementing all of ex-AC Ball’s recommendations. I repeat today my apology for the late discoveries.”
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