The UK's security services protected a top spy planted within the Irish Republican Army when they knew he was wanted by police for murder, and continued to suppress the truth about the agent decades after Northern Ireland's bloody conflict, a report released this week said.
A final report into the actions of the agent "Stakeknife", a senior IRA member who passed information to British intelligence during the conflict known as “the Troubles”, revealed that Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency “had greater and earlier knowledge” of his activities than previously known.
The spy was seen as Britain’s most centrally placed mole within the IRA. He is widely believed to be Freddie Scappaticci, who was linked to the IRA's ruthless internal security unit and allegedly involved in more than a dozen cases of killings, tortures and abductions.
Scappaticci died at age 77 in 2023 without being charged or convicted of any offenses during the conflict.
The report said that MI5 provided fresh material as recently as last year showing that Stakeknife’s handlers twice flew him out of Northern Ireland for "holidays" when they knew he was wanted for conspiracy to murder and false imprisonment.
Jon Boutcher, the chief constable of Northern Ireland's police force, said Tuesday that the late disclosure of the files was a "serious organisational failure" on the part of MI5 that undermined the trust of victims and their families.
"The organisation’s role in running Stakeknife was far from peripheral, as had been claimed," Boutcher said.
He said the spy was an important source of intelligence but he was also involved in "the most serious and inexcusable criminality while operating as an agent, including murders".
Boutcher added that the government’s refusal to officially name the agent "is untenable and bordering on farce".
MI5 director general Ken McCallum said he was sorry for the late discoveries, but maintained that no files were deliberately withheld. He offered sympathies to the victims and families of those who were tortured or killed by the IRA.
The police investigation named Operation Kenova began in 2016 and examined about 100 killings and abductions linked to the IRA’s notorious "nutting squad", which was responsible for interrogating, torturing and killing people suspected of passing information to British security forces during the conflict.
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It found that the cultivation and recruitment of Stakeknife started in the 1970s and he continued to operate as an agent into the 1990s. It discovered more than 3500 intelligence reports from the spy, but found that authorities often appeared to prioritise the protection of the agent at the expense of others who were harmed or killed.
An interim report published last year found that "murders that could and should have been prevented were allowed to take place with the knowledge of the security forces, and those responsible for murder were not brought to justice and were instead left free to re-offend".
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely ended a conflict involving Irish republican and British loyalist militants and the UK security forces that left 3600 people dead, some 50,000 wounded and thousands bereaved.
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