11 December, 2025 -
Author: Micheál MacEoin
Pic: MI5 headquarters
A nine-year police investigation, known as Operation Kenova, has uncovered much new detail about the British Army agent "Stakeknife", who has been linked to 14 murders and 15 abductions.
"Stakeknife" is widely believed to be Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, a former member of the Provisional IRA, who died in 2023. Scappatici operated within the IRA's notorious internal security unit - or "nutting squad" - which was tasked with uncovering, interrogating and ultimately executing alleged informers.
However, absurdly, the Report itself was not allowed by the British Government and the security services to name Scappaticci, in deference to the policy of “Neither Confirm Nor Deny”. This approach was defended by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the House of Commons in the wake of the Report’s publication.
The “nutting squad’s” victims were often tortured and dumped at the side of roads, as a warning to others; taped “confessions” were played to their families, who were forced to live for decades with stigma.
In a horrible irony, the man who led the brutal unit was himself an army intelligence asset from the late 1970s to the 1990s, working primarily with the Force Research Unit (FRU), a covert military intelligence unit of the British Army's Intelligence Corps.
The FRU were able to use their “golden egg” within the IRA to steer the group’s own internal security, protect assets and provide intelligence into the IRA’s inner workings.
An interim report, published last year, found that "Stakeknife" had probably cost more lives than he saved. Operation Kenova discovered 3,517 intelligence reports from “Stakeknife” but these were not used to protect lives. Quite the opposite. The Report does not, at times, pull its punches: "Time and again, it would appear that protecting the agent outweighed protecting the life of a victim or protecting the right of their families to see justice for the crimes committed against their loved ones."
Worse than this, army intelligence handlers twice took “Stakeknife” out of Northern Ireland on holiday when police began to suspect his involvement in serious criminality. The Report also found that when the resettlement of Stakeknife was originally being considered in the 1990s, “there was communication within the Army about arranging a ‘Farewell Dinner’, including a list of those who would attend and a likely venue.”
When “Stakeknife” was ultimately exposed in 2003 by journalists, he was set up in a series of large and comfortable houses in England and allowed to live on the generous proceeds of his “work”.
The report was authored by former Police Scotland chief constable Sir Iain Livingstone. Current Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable John Boutcher previously led the investigation.
It accuses MI5 of “serious organisational failure” in trying to restrict the investigation. Documents about the agency’s involvement with Stakeknife were passed to the investigation only last year, after the interim report was published. MI5 even broke into a safe used by Kenova investigators based in its London headquarters in Thames House and accessed restricted material.
The Report states that: “The further material revealed MI5 had earlier and greater knowledge of the agent than previously stated” and that the “revelation of the MI5 material 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.”
Many victims are angry that the Report was prevented from naming "Stakeknife". That is justified.
At the same time, the Report is nevertheless a step forward in exposing the role of British military intelligence and the security services in Britain's "dirty war" in the North of Ireland.
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