Stakeknife spy inquiry impeded by MI5 - report

Britain's security services allowed a top agent inside the IRA to commit murders and then impeded a police investigation into the affair, according to a damning official report.

- Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

MI5 helped the double agent known as Stakeknife to evade justice from a "perverse sense of loyalty" that outlasted Northern Ireland's Troubles, the police investigation known as Operation Kenova said yesterday.

His handlers twice took him out of Northern Ireland for a "holiday" when they knew police sought to question him on suspicion of murder and false imprisonment, it revealed.

The nine-year investigation painted a highly critical picture of MI5's handling of Freddie Scappaticci, a mole at the heart of the IRA who is believed to have cost more lives than he saved.

The full report, which cost an estimated £40m, shines a light into some of the murkiest corners of the Troubles.

In addition to Stakeknife, the Kenova team also ran Operation Denton, which reviewed the so-called Glennane Gang, a loyalist network linked to about 120 murders.

It found “clear evidence” that “corrupt” members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment aided the Ulster Volunteer Force, but no evidence of the security forces’ collaboration in UVF bombings in Dublin and Monaghan that killed 33 people on 17 May 1974 - the biggest loss of life on a single day in the conflict.

“Denton did not find evidence of high-level state collusion or an intent on the part of the leadership of the British army or the UK government to collaborate with loyalist paramilitaries,’ Jon Boutcher, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who previously led the Kenova team, told press conference.

The long-awaited report offered information but not justice for the families of people killed by Scappat-icci’s unit. He died in 2023 at the age of 77 and the investigation has led to no prosecutions.