A new report accuses MI5 of enabling a British army agent to commit murders and torture while infiltrated within the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Northern Ireland conflict.
The report is based on an investigation called 'Operation Kenova,' initiated in 2016 by British police, which examines crimes of murder and torture dating back to the 1970s.
It centres on an undercover agent codenamed “Stakeknife” and investigates the role of security services, including MI5.
The conflict surrounding the British presence in Northern Ireland spanned three decades, claimed 3,500 lives, and ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Stakeknife led the IRA’s feared “nutting squad,” responsible for interrogating and eliminating suspected traitors and informants. Ironically, while carrying out this work, he himself was an undercover British agent. The inquiry reviewed 101 murders and kidnappings connected to this unit, concluding that the agent committed the most serious crimes imaginable.
The report states that neither the British Army nor MI5 were capable of effectively controlling Stakeknife’s actions.
Oversight measures that should have been implemented were ignored due to “a sense of loyalty” to the agent. These blurred boundaries allowed him to continue serious criminal activities without ever being brought to justice.
Freddie Scappaticci, suspected of being Stakeknife, died in 2023 at the age of 77. He admitted that he was a member of the IRA up to 1990, but denied working for British intelligence services.
The report urges the UK government to publicly disclose the identity of the agent, currently protected by his status. Investigators highlighted challenges in obtaining certain details during their enquiries.
MI5 was late in delivering relevant documents to the investigation, which Iain Livingstone, the head of Operation Kenova, described as “a significant failure” by the intelligence agency.
Livingstone criticised the delays and revealed that newly obtained files showed that MI5 had earlier and deeper knowledge of Stakeknife’s actions than previously reported.
In the wake of the report, MI5 Director Ken McCallum extended condolences to the victims and their families.
