STAKEKNIFE

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STAKEKNIFE

Freddie “Scap”[1] Scappaticci has been named as the FRU agent Stakeknife[2]. 

His name was published on 11^th May 2003 in the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Herald, the Sunday World and the Sunday People[3].  The Scottish Sunday Herald approached the D Notice Committee in the days prior to publication on 11^th May 2003 and were told that they would not be injuncted if they named Stakeknife so long as a newspaper in another jurisdiction had named him already.  When they asked the committee whether they would put Scappaticci’s life at risk if they named him, he was told that Stakeknife was out of the country[4], which was apparently untrue.  Andrew Jaspan, editor of the Sunday Herald, waited for the first editions of the three Irish Sunday papers that named Stakeknife before going to press himself[5].  Some newspapers claimed that Stakeknife was named as Scappaticci on the Cryptome website, but this was not in fact the case[6].

Scappaticci is in his late fifties[7].  He comes from a large, staunchly republican family in west Belfast.  He has had homes in both Dublin and Belfast[8], where he lives at Riverdale Park North in Andersonstown[9].

He joined the IRA in 1970 and was interned with Gerry Adams in 1971[10].  He was interned again in 1974[11].  He is reported as having approached British military intelligence in 1978 and volunteered to act as an informer after he was severely beaten up by a Belfast IRA man[12].   He became the Force Research Unit’s most highly placed agent within the IRA[13].  A dedicated team, known as “the rat hole” was set up within FRU solely to handle Stakeknife[14].

Over time, Stakeknife rose through the ranks of the IRA to become a key figure in the “security department” known as the “nutting squad”, which sought out and eliminated informers and security force agents.  He is alleged to have been second in command under John Joe Magee[15].  The IRA is said to have executed over 50 people: 16 IRA members, 7 ex-members, and 24 others.[16]

Stakeknife is alleged to have been trained in interrogation techniques in Libya in the 1980s[17].  It has been alleged that four men who supplied information to the security forces about the IRA have been interrogated by or have escaped interrogation by Stakeknife: Martin McGartland, Raymond Gilmore, Sandy Lynch[18], and the man calling himself Kevin Fulton[19].  The latter, a former British army agent, has lodged a complaint with the police in London that Scappaticci threatened to kill him in 1994 because he suspected Fulton had thwarted the attempted murder of a senior RUC officer, Derek Martindale[20].  Another informer, Eamon Collins, who was subsequently murdered by the IRA, has written about Scappaticci’s role in the nutting squad, of which Collins was also a member, in his book Killing Rage[21].

Stakeknife was allegedly paid £80,000 a year for the information he provided[22], although one report said he received only £200 a week[23].  He spent very little of the money, which he regarded as being for his family[24].  It was paid into a secret bank account in Gibraltar[25]. 

His career spanned the terms of office of three prime ministers: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair[26]. 

He is alleged to have been involved in the following deaths:

·         Paul Valente, murdered by the IRA in 1980, allegedly for revealing to Special Branch the identity of an IRA mole within the RUC[27]

·         Maurice Gilvarry, an alleged informer, murdered by the IRA in January 1981[28]

·         Patrick Trainor, murdered in February 1981; his family denied that he was an informer[29]

·         Vincent Robinson, found shot in the head in June 1981; again it was disputed that he was an informer[30]

·         Anthony Braniff, a senior member of the IRA killed in September 1981; the IRA have issued an apology for his death and confirmed that he was not an informer[31]

·         John Torbett, shot by the IRA in January 1982 after defying an IRA exclusion order[32]

·         Seamus Morgan, an IRA member and election worker for Bobby Sands, abducted in February 1982; his body was found on 6^th March 1982; his family denied he was an informer[33]

·         Patrick Scott, a former member of the IRA whose body was found on 3^rd April 1982; he had given himself up to the IRA in order to convince them he was not an informer[34]

·         James Young, an IRA man who was also allegedly an informer, murdered in February 1984[35]

·         Brian McNally, another IRA member whose status as an informer is disputed, found tortured and killed in July 1984[36]

·         Kevin Coyle, murdered in February 1985 after providing a taped confession to the IRA that he was an informer[37]

·         John Corcoran, an IRA man allegedly sacrificed to save another informer, Séan O’Callaghan, murdered in March 1985[38]

·         Catherine and Gerard Mahon, a couple who confessed to being RUC informers, murdered in 1985[39]

·         Damien McCrory, found dead in October 1985; the IRA said he had confessed to being an RUC informer, but he was of low inteligence and any such confession must have been questionable[40]

·         an RUC Special Branch informer known by the codename Campaign, also known as DJ, murdered by the IRA in 1985 [Patrick Murray? murdered in 1986[41]][42]

·         Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster in Derry who was an informer.  He revealed the whereabouts of the large Eksund consignment of weapons from Libya.  Margaret Thatcher allowed the Irish government to seize the dump.  Hegarty’s cover was blown and he was removed from Northern Ireland, but he returned after receiving assurances from the IRA that he would not be killed.  However, he was murdered by the IRA in 1986.[43]

·         David McVeigh, an IRA member murdered in September 1986; his family deny he was an informer[44]

·         Charles McIlmurry, an IRA man who confessed to being an informer during a supposed amnesty; the IRA murdered him in April 1987[45]

·         Thomas Wilson, a member of the Official IRA whose family denied he was an informer, murdered in June 1987[46]

·         Eamonn Maguire, a former IRA member whose family deny that he had worked as an informer for An Garda Síochána[47]

·         Francisco Notorantonio, killed to divert loyalists from targeting Stakeknife, October 1987[48]

·         8 IRA men - Patrick Kelly, Patrick McKearney, Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Eugene Kelly, Michael Gormley, Gerard O’Callaghan, James Lynagh – and passer-by Antony Hughes, killed in a security force ambush at Loughgall, November 1987[49]

·         an unnamed IRA man [Anthony McKiernan?[50]] who questioned Stakeknife’s trustworthiness, 1988

·         IRA members Sean Savage, Daniel McCann and Mairead Farrell, killed by the SAS on Gibraltar, 1988[52]

·         Joseph Fenton, an estate agent who was allegedly an informer, 1989[53]; he is alleged to have allowed empty properties to be used as safe houses by the IRA but informed the police, who bugged the houses[54]; it has been alleged that FRU could have rescued him but let him die in order to preserve Stakeknife’s cover[55]

·         John McAnulty, whose body was found in July 1989; his friends deny that he had been an RUC informer for 17 years[56]

·         Paddy Flood, killed by the IRA as an informer in 1990[57]

·         Co Louth farmer Tom Oliver, tortured and killed by the IRA in 1991[58]; he allegedly passed information to An Garda Síochána about IRA activity on the border, endangering a safe house used by Stakeknife for interrogations[59]

·         Rory Finnis, murdered by the IRA as an alleged informer in June 1991[60]

·         IRA men Aidan Starrs, Gregory Burns and John Dignam, tortured and executed in 1992 after they murdered Burns’ former girlfriend, Margaret Perry, who had threatened to expose them as informers[61]; the three men were allegedly FRU agents[62]

·         Robin Hill, another IRA member whose family dispute he was an informer, murdered in August 1992[63]

·         Gerald Holmes, murdered in August 1992, after the IRA extracted a taped confession that he had been an informer, which his family do not accept[64]

·         Christopher Harte, whose body was fund in February 1993; it is alleged that the security forces may have framed him to look like an informer[65]

·         James Kelly, whose family dispute IRA claims that he was an informer, murdered in March 1993[66]

·         John Mulhern, an alleged informer murdered in June 1993[67]

·         Michael Brown, whom the IRA alleged had been an IRA informer, murdered in April 1994[68]

·         Caroline Moreland, allegedly falsely accused of being a Special branch informer, 17^th July  1994[69]

·         Joseph O’Connor, RIRA man shot in 2000, allegedly because he threatened to expose Stakeknife[70].

Many reports suggest that there may have been as many as 40 victims altogether.

It has been alleged that Stakeknife was responsible for the abduction in 1989 of Sunday World journalist Martin O’Hagan, who was murdered by loyalists in 2001.  The journalist was lured to South Armagh, where he was questioned overnight about his sources for stories about paramilitaries.[71]

Stakeknife is also alleged to have set Danny Morrison up for arrest in 1990 over the Sandy Lynch affair.  Lynch, a police informer, was interrogated by Stakeknife, who threatened to kill him.  Lynch was rescued by the RUC and Danny Morrison, the IRA’s director of publicity, was arrested at the house and sentenced to eight years for false imprisonment.[72]  Scappaticci’s fingerprints were allegedly found at the scene; he was later questioned about the incident but was released without charge[73].

Stakeknife is also said to have facilitated Operation Santa, just before Christmas 1978, when he and another IRA man known as “Bald Eagle” were sent to England to activate a team of IRA sleepers and launch a bombing campaign in Britain.  All police leave was cancelled and tanks and armoured cars were deployed at Heathrow airport.[74]

According to one newspaper, Stakeknife’s identity was exposed by a loyalist terrorist who had been given a false identity, who resented the more generous resettlement terms offered to Stakeknife[75].  Another paper claimed that he was named by former FRU agents after the MoD failed to provide them with resettlement packages[76].  One such agent, known as Kevin Fulton, who had previously threatened to expose Stakeknife because the Ministry of Defence were refusing him a resettlement package[77], categorically denied that he had named him[78].  Stakeknife’s existence first came into the public domain when a former FRU agent, known as Martin Ingram, talked about him to the Sunday Times[79].  He too has denied naming Scappaticci, but has expressed fears for his safety, thus implying that he is indeed Stakeknife[80].  A third agent, known as Samuel Rosenfeld, whose situation, like that of Kevin Fulton, has featured on the Cryptome website, has also denied naming Stakeknife[81].

The Stevens 3 investigation became interested in Stakeknife over three years ago, when the former FRU agent known as Martin Ingram led them to a number of files that had not previously been disclosed to them[82], although they were already aware of Stakeknife’s existence[83].  On 17^th April Sir John Stevens made public a summary of his work to date.  Asked at the press conference about Stakeknife, he said, “ We will be questioning Stakeknife soon.  We fear other informants have been sacrificed to save him and we will be asking him about that.”[84]  Following the exposure of Stakeknife, it was reported that the Stevens team would also be interviewing all his handlers[85].  On Saturday 17^th May 2003 Martin Ingram said that he had told the Stevens 3 investigation about Stakeknife’s identity three years ago[86].

Stakeknife was warned on Friday 9^th May that he was about to be exposed[87].  At first he reportedly attempted to brazen it out, posing for a Sunday newspaper with his granddaughter at his west Belfast home, where he was seen on the evening of 10^th May.  However, in the early hours of Sunday morning he apparently fled to England.[88]  He was reported to be located at a Joint Services Group [formerly FRU] base in Chicksands in Dorset, where the L Branch, which handles the resettlement of agents, is based[89].  Known as the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre, it contains a 12^th century haunted priory where Stakeknife would stay for several weeks while he was debriefed[90]. 

Doubt concerning his whereabouts was sown when Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin said that Scappaticci’s family had contacted him to say that he was still in Belfast[91].  Another Sinn Féin representative, Arthur Morgan, claimed that Scappaticci was at home eating his dinner on the evening of 12^th May[92].  On Tuesday 13^th May Scappaticci’s solicitor, Michael Flanigan, issued the following statement on his behalf:

“I have been instructed by Mr Fred Scappaticci to make the following public statement:

A number of most serious allegations have been made about my client in the press since Sunday.  My client denies each and every one of these allegations. 

He is not ‘Stakeknife’.  He has never been an informer, has never contacted the intelligence services, has never been taken into protective custody and has never received any money from the security services. 

My client is the victim of misinformation, apparently emanating from the security forces and disseminated by the press. 

Mr Scappaticci is an ordinary working man living in west Belfast and as such has no means at his disposal to combat this onslaught of false allegations. 

Clearly, his life has been placed in danger as a result and he is now in hiding.  He has not been arrested and no attempt has been made by the police to speak to him about any of the matters referred to by the media.  He has not been contacted by the Stevens investigation team. 

Mr Scappaticci has been compelled to issue this statement as a result of the intense media speculation about him.  In the interests of protecting his privacy no further statement will be issued at this time.”[93]

The Ministry of Defence added to the confusion by saying that they did have an agent known as “Steak Knife” and that Scappaticci was “not in the care of the army”, implying that he was being protected by MI5[94].  A single newspaper report claimed that the Stakeknife operation involved two agents, and that another republican from north Belfast was still infiltrated into the heart of the IRA[95].

By Wednesday 14^th May it was being reported that Scappaticci was in a safe house in Britain being protected by MI5.  It was denied that he was at Chicksands.[96]  However, at 5:00 pm that evening BBC television news broadcast a short interview with Scappaticci, filmed in his solicitor’s office in Belfast.  Scappaticci said:

"I am Freddie Scappaticci.

I am sitting here today with my solicitor and I am telling you I am not guilty of any of these allegations.

I have not left Northern Ireland since I was challenged by reporters on Saturday night.

Nobody had the decency to ask me if any of these allegations were true and why the police had not come to question me about these allegations.”[97]

In response to questions from BBC Northern Ireland security editor Brian Rowan, Scappaticci said he did not know why the label Stakeknife had been attached to him and had not known that it had been until Saturday night.  Asked if he had been, at any stage, a member of the IRA and involved in the republican movement he said,

"I was involved in the republican movement 13 years ago but I have no involvement this past 13 years."[98]

Freelance journalist Anne Cadwallender was also present during the interview.  Off camera, Scappaticci told her that the name given on his birth certificate is not Alfredo, as many reports have it, but Freddie.[99]  On18th May he gave a longer interview to the Andersonstown News, repeating his denials.  He claimed that he had gone to stay with a friend to get away from the media.[100]

It later transpired that Scappaticci was taken by FRU to a safe house in Northern Ireland, where he was debriefed by MI5.  He was told that he would be taken to Chicksands, where a new identity would be invented for him.  However, Scappaticci refused to be resettled and returned to Belfast.  It was claimed that undercover soldiers were guarding his home night and day.[101]   It was also said that Scappaticci had turned down a resettlement offer previously when the Sunday Times first published Martin Ingram’s claim of his existence[102].

On Tuesday 14^th May four men, one of whom spoke with an English accent,  were allegedly found in the loft of the Carnegie Library on the Falls Road which overlooks the Belfast headquarters of Sinn Féin.  The men refused to explain their presence.  It would appear that they were spying on Sinn Féin as they reacted to the breaking news about Stakeknife.[103]  They may have expected Scappaticci to give his press conference from Sinn Féin headquarters[104].

On that same day, responding to a House of Commons debate on the Stevens 3 investigation, the minister responsible for security in Northern Ireland, Jane Kennedy MP, said:

“Hon. Members also made comments about Stakeknife.  They will not be surprised to learn that I will not comment on intelligence matters.  I will not confirm whether press speculation about the identity and actions of Stakeknife is accurate – regardless of how that name is spelt.  I will not comment on Stakeknife's whereabouts, nor will I comment on media speculation about any arrangements for his safety.  That is a blanket refusal to respond.  It is for Sir John Stevens to decide whether he wishes to interview Stakeknife.”[105]

The Irish government has expressed concern that the Stakeknife affair could destabilise the already fragile peace process in Northern Ireland[106].

On 16^th May, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that Scappaticci should be considered innocent until proven guilty[107].  Other republicans told reporters that they did not believe that Stakeknife was a person, but rather was a codename for a spying operation[108].  They were also reported as believing that Scappaticci was named as Stakeknife by the intelligence services in order to lure the IRA into breaking its ceasefire by murdering him, the usual fate of an informer[109].

On the same day, the Metropolitan police raided the home of the former agent known as Kevin Fulton, who had lodged a complaint with the police about Scappaticci’s alleged interrogation of himself while infiltrated into the IRA[110].  The raid took place at around 7:40 am and was carried out under the Official Secrets Act[111].  On 21^st May Kevin Fulton was interviewed by the Stevens 3 team about his complaint against Scappaticci[112].

On 18^th May a Sunday newspaper published an interview with a man who said that he was Stakeknife’s FRU handler in the 1980s.  He confirmed that Scappaticci was Stakeknife.  The handler claimed that actions and inaction designed to protect Stakeknife’s cover were decided by the Joint Irish Section (Northern Ireland MI5) and the Tasking and Co-ordinating Group, and were sanctioned by Whitehall and the Cabinet.   He also said that Scappaticci had very damaging information about senior republicans and that this was the reason that Sinn Féin appeared to accept Scappaticci’s denials that he was Stakeknife.  For example, Stakeknife told FRU that he had witnessed one high-profile republican shoot an informer in the head, and had provided intelligence which allowed FRU to recruit two very close relatives of another.  Stakeknife had also provided information on the IRA’s links with FARC and ETA.[113]  On 25^th May another Sunday paper claimed that Stakeknife had alleged that a senior Sinn Féin politican had killed an alleged informer, Maurice Gilvarry, with a shot to the back of his head in 1981[114]

On the same day another paper claimed that Stakeknife was one of five senior republicans who were informers, according to former RUC Special Branch officers and senior members of the Irish police, An Garda Síochána.  One of these was said to be the head of the nutting squad, John Joe Magee.  Former RUC officers claimed to have photographs of leading IRA members meeting FRU officers, as well as transcripts and classified documents to support their claims.  They were said to be ready to name the other informers because of their dissatisfaction with the reform of policing in Northern Ireland.[115]   It was also reported that three more IRA informers might be named by disgruntled FRU officers in retaliation for the Stevens 3 investigation into FRU.  They claim that a west Belfast man with a senior position within Sinn Féin was a second Stakeknife.[116]

On 25^th May 2003 it was reported that Scappaticci has applied for leave to judicially review Jane Kennedy MP, the minister responsible for security matters in Northern Ireland, for refusing to confirm that he was nor Stakeknife or Steakknife[117].  His application for leave was heard on 6^th June.  Judgement was reserved.[118]  On 17^th June judgment was delivered: Scappaticci was given leave to proceed with his case[119].  On 5^th August 2003 the High Court ruled that Jane Kennedy would not have to appear in person at the hearing, since she had not entered an affidavit.  He also refused an application by Scappaticci’s lawyers for disclosure of a letter said to have been sent by the D Notice Committee to a newspaper advising them that it was alright to publish his name.[120]  During the same hearing it was disclosed that Freddie Scappaticci was receiving state security protection[121], although he was not put on the Key Persons Protection Scheme[122].  On 18 August 2003 he lost his case.  The court ruled that the government was entitled to refuse to confirm or deny the identity of any of its agents in case by doing so they put lives at risk.[123]  In October Freddie Scappaticci appealed against this decision[124].  In April 2004 he abandoned his appeal[125]

On 8^th June 2003 it was reported that Scappaticci had been summoned to Co Donegal the previous week to be interrogated by the IRA concerning the allegation that he is Stakeknife.  It was alleged that he was questioned on at least three separate occasions in a house in the Gortahork area by two senior IRA men.[126]  By June 11^th it was reported that he had returned to his Belfast home[127].

Doubts were raised about the Stevens 3 investigation into Stakeknife on 15^th June 2003.  It was alleged that Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the PSNI, had not applied for extra funding to cover the costs of the investigation[128].    It was also reported that the Ministry of Defence had destroyed thousands of pages of records relating to Stakeknife.  An anonymous source within the Stevens team was quoted as saying that they had requested the documents three years ago after receiving information from the former FRU soldier known as Martin Ingram.    They were told then that the documents did not exist.  Then new information given them in November 2002 showed that the documents had been in existence when they were requested.  However, in the interim they had been destroyed.[129]

On 8^th February 2004 it was reported that Freddie Scappaticci was seeking a ban on the sale of a book about Stakeknife throughout the United Kingdom[130].

On 28th February 2004 a tape recording, alleged to be an interview between television journalists and Freddie Scappaticci, named only as Jack on the tape, was posted on the Cryptome website[131].  In it Jack is heard talking about the roles of various high-profile IRA men.  The interview is said to have taken place in the car park of the Culloden Hotel in north Down, and to have been recorded clandestinely by army intelligence agents in August 1993.[132]  On 15^th March 2004 UTV’s current affairs programme Insight broadcast tapes of Freddie Scappaticci talking to journalists from The Cook Report in August 1993 about the alleged activities of the IRA.  Freddie Scappaticci issued a statement through his solicitor admitting that it was his voice on the tape-recording, but saying that he had told the journalists what they wanted to hear.[133]  He continued to deny that he was Stakeknife[134].

On 30^th May 2004 it was reported that Freddie Scappaticci had abandoned Ireland altogether and was living in Italy.  His Belfast home was allegedly being sold privately.[135]

Most analysts agree that both the IRA and the security services have been seriously compromised by the Stakeknife revelations[136].  It is also obvious that this story is far from over.

last updated 4^th June 2004

[131]    http://www.cryptome.org, scappaticci.htm, + Freddie Scappaticci Secret 

            Interviews, February 27, 2004

For Peace Justice & Human Rights

 09 March, 2006 |