'Stakeknife' army spy inside IRA committed 'grotesque' crimes and should be officially identified, report says
Government urged to officially identify Freddie Scappaticci as Stakeknife, an agent who has been linked to 14 murders
The UK Government has been urged to reveal the identity of an Army spy who committed "grotesque, serious crimes" whilst operating from deep inside the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
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The agent, who was given the codename "Stakeknife", was found to have committed crimes such as torture and murder following a major independent probe into their activities.
Operation Kenova, which examined 101 murders and abductions linked to the IRA unit responsible for interrogating and torturing people during the conflict, found in its interim report that more lives were probably lost than saved through the agent's operations.
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Following these damming revelations, Kenova chief Sir Iain Livingstone said there is a “compelling ethical case for the UK Government to derogate from the Neither Confirm Nor Deny (NCND) policy regarding the agent Stakeknife’s identity”.
Stakeknife was widely believed to be west Belfast man, Freddie Scappaticci, a member of the IRA who also fed information to the British Army. He died in 2023 aged 77.
He was linked to 14 murders and 15 abductions while working for a ruthless unit of the paramilitary group known as the "nutting squad".
The final Kenova report, published on Tuesday, called on the UK Government to name Stakeknife, who has never been officially identified by authorities.
As part of its 10 recommendations, it also calls for the Government to acknowledge and apologise to bereaved families and surviving victims.
MI5 has been accused of attempting to "conceal the truth" about the links it had to Stakeknife, after the report found it was "aware of his involvement in serious criminality".
The details emerged in hundreds of documents that MI5 discovered in 2024.
MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum has 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".
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," he added.
"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."
The final report also includes a report of Operation Denton, which reviewed a series of attacks carried out by loyalists with involvement by some members of the security forces in the 1970s known as the Glenanne Gang.
The report found that an “easily defined Glenanne Gang did not exist”.
It contends the term "evolved" to become a “convenient shorthand construct to group together the horrific activities of a broader network of paramilitary groups, “primarily the wider UVF and Mid Ulster UVF acting with corrupt members of the security forces, including the RUC and UDR”.
The Glenanne Gang was a loyalist paramilitary group responsible for the Dublin Monaghan bombings in which 33 people were killed, among other attacks.
It remains the biggest loss of life on any single day of the Troubles.
The report found there was no specific intelligence that could have prevented these attacks, adding that the UVF was responsible.
The Kenova inquiry was initially set up to investigate the activities of Stakeknife within the PIRA’s internal security unit and commenced in 2016.
The probe discovered 3,517 intelligence reports from Stakeknife, including 377 in an 18-month period.
However, the report found that “time and time again”, the reports were not acted on, apparently prioritising the protection of the agent over those who “could and should have been saved”.
Last week, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) in Northern Ireland announced that no prosecutions would be pursued after consideration of the last batch of files from the investigation.