Kenova report: More lives lost than saved due to Stakeknife’s activities, inquiry concludes

More lives were lost than saved as a consequence of the activities of the British Army’s top IRA agent during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a long-awaited inquiry has concluded, Northern Correspondent Seanín Graham reports.

Operation Kenova, the £40 million independent investigation into the activities of high-ranking double agent Stakeknife, was published on Tuesday and laid bare the role of a specialist British Army unit and RUC special branch in “withholding information from and about their agents” with the result that “very serious criminal offences, including murder, were not prevented or investigated when they could and should have been”.

Freddie Scappaticci, the senior Belfast IRA member widely identified as Stakeknife, who headed up its notorious internal security unit (ISU) or nutting squad, is not named in the report due to a UK government policy of “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) relating to sensitive intelligence issues.

Jon Boutcher, the now Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) who headed up the seven-year inquiry, said security forces repeatedly withheld and did not action information about threats to life, abductions, and murders in order to protect secret agents from compromise.

“As a result, 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 reoffend again,” he said.

“Indeed, we could not find any Troubles-related cases where a prosecution was brought in connection with a victim who was murdered because they’re accused or suspected of being an agent.

“That of itself should have sounded huge alarm bells to those in charge of the agencies involved.”

The 200-page report states that the Stakeknife case has become “synonymous with claims of state wrongdoing” and that “various myths and erroneous stories have emerged over time” about his “murderous actions”.

The main findings of the report are:

More lives were lost than saved as a consequence of the activities of the British Army’s top IRA agent Freddie Scappattici known as Stakeknife during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.Claims by British intelligence that the intervention of Stakeknife saved hundreds of lives are based on “unreliable and speculative internal metrics”.The IRA’s treatment of informers was among the “most shameful and evil I have ever encountered”, report author Jon Boutcher concluded.The British government and the IRA should apologise to the families of victims of the IRA “nutting squad”.Jon Boutcher has recommended that June 21st be set aside every year to remember the victims of the Troubles.

Scappaticci files at ‘advanced stage’ before he died in 2023

Consideration of files examining evidence of serious criminality against Freddie Scappaticci was at an advanced staged when he died in 2023, prosecutors have said.

However, Northern Ireland’s director of public prosecutions Stephen Herron has said he cannot confirm whether a prosecution would have been brought.

Mr Herron was responding following the publication of the interim findings of Operation Kenova into the operation of the British Army’s top agent inside the IRA during the Troubles.

The report gave no confirmation that the agent Stakeknife was Scappaticci.

However, it did confirm Scappaticci was arrested as part of the Kenova operation and prosecutors were examining evidence of serious criminality against him at the time of his death at the age of 77 in 2023.

In a statement, Mr Herron said: “Today’s report and commentary referenced the strength of the evidence in relation to a suspect who died before decisions were taken.

“Consideration of all files received from Kenova in relation to this individual was at an advanced stage at the time of their death.

“There were significant evidential challenges, including issues of admissibility similar to those described in our public explanations of the decisions in other cases.

“However, the test for prosecution is not applied to individuals who are deceased and we cannot therefore confirm whether prosecutions would have been brought.”

Mr Herron said he hoped the interim report provided “a wider level of information for victims and families who have been seeking answers for many years”.

He added: “Today should rightly be about recognising the continued trauma of victims and families and identifying what can be learned to help them and society in moving forward.”

Last week the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland announced that no prosecutions would be pursued after consideration of the last batch of files from the Kenova investigation.

Mr Herron said: “All of the decisions that we have taken in relation to the files submitted by Operation Kenova have been explained in detail to the victims and families concerned.”

However, he also said that the PPS is not “funded adequately” to progress legacy casework.

Mr Herron said: “The reality is that the PPS did not have sufficient resources to progress the Kenova decisions more quickly and that remains the position in relation to legacy cases more generally.

“However, skilled and experienced prosecutors and counsel were identified in advance of initial submissions to work on the Kenova files and the prosecutors directly involved dedicated the majority of their time, since 2020, to working on these cases.

“They also held multiple conferences with the Kenova team and issued advice and directions which resulted in the receipt of additional materials and reports.

“As is acknowledged within the report, any delay in decision-making was related to inadequate resources.

“I hope that the funding requirements of all parts of the justice system are recognised in future discussions about potential prosecutions in legacy cases and the need to progress these more quickly.”

Mr Herron said he agreed there is “undoubtedly a need for a dedicated legacy prosecution unit as part of future plans for dealing with Troubles-related offending”.

The Kenova report is full of allegations of skullduggery on the part of British security.

One involved the author Jon Boutcher who said he was called to a meeting in January 2020 with the chief constable of the PSNI Simon Byrne and assistant chief constable George Clarke.

Both men told him they had incriminating evidence against him that accused him of having past the name of British agents and had an “unhealthy relationship” with third parties that had breached the Official Secrets Act 1989.

Mr Boutcher said he met an individual who claimed to have information that was of interest, but he met the individual in the company of a notetaker and denied disclosing any information to him or anyone else.

He challenged the PSNI to fully investigate the claim, but heard no more about it.

“This episode provides an example of the efforts that can be made to undermine and discredit those conducting legacy investigations,” he concluded.

For those who want to know more about Stakeknife, Richard O’Rawe’s book Stakeknife’s Dirty War is well worth reading.

O’Rawe is a former republican prisoner who spent time in jail with Freddie Scappaticci.

He told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that “nobody comes out of [the report] well.

“The IRA don’t come out of it well for a plethora of reasons, principally because they killed these people.”

Speaking about the “forces of state”, O’Rawe says: “[They] knew that people were going to be executed, murdered, call it what you will, and they knew they could have intervened and saved those people’s lives and they didn’t.

“They allowed them to be murdered and they did so because they wanted to protect their sources, their sources was[sic] more important than the lives of Irish and British citizens”.

‘A trauma right across our society’

First Minister Michelle O’Neill addressed the findings of the Kenova report this afternoon. The legacy of the Troubles was a “trauma right across our society”.

“We must never forget those who have died or been injured and their families. I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict without exception. Regrettably the path cannot be changed or cannot be undone.

“Neither can the suffering, the hurt or the political violence of conflict be disowned by republicans or by any other party to the conflict.

“People’s lives from every section of the community were trespassed upon during the conflict by British state forces, republicans, loyalists, and unimaginable grief and hurt and pain and suffering was inflicted.

“I would never ask any mother, father, wife, husband, son, daughter, brother or sister to forget the past or to move on. While thankfully the conflict is long over, the legacy of our past remains unresolved.”

Her statement stopped short of the apology that the author of the Kenova Report, suggested should come from the republican leadership to the victims of the IRA’s internal security unit, otherwise known as the ‘nutting squad’.

Colm Keena reports from Belfast:

A solicitor representing a number of families of people killed by the Provisional IRA’s internal security unit (ISU) or “nutting squad” has said the Boutcher Report into the activities of IRA mole Freddie Scappaticci leads to the “horrendous conclusion” that “the IRA and the State were co-conspirators” in murder.

Kevin Winter, of KRW Law, speaking to reporters in Belfast following the publication of the report, said the decision not to name Scappaticci as the agent known as “Stakeknife” was difficult for many to accept.

Families have not been told yet privately, and do not know yet if they will be told whether their murdered family members had in fact been IRA informers giving intelligence to the security services, he said.

The report says that some of those killed by the IRA were not in fact informers, but does not give a number.

Mr Winter said the failure to prosecute anyone for the murders was “all the more depressing” given the content of the report.

He said the families tended to be republican families or to come from republican areas and “know or have a suspicion who was involved in the IRA killing of their family members.

They are not particularly interested in prosecutions against “IRA foot soldiers”, he said, and were more focused on the identity of the handlers and others who facilitated and protected Scappaticci “and possibly others” from action.

Mr Winter said the call for apologies all round in the report “does not really cut it with some families” and called for a full public inquiry into state penetration of the PIRA’s ISU.

“It is over simplistic and naive to assume that Freddie Scappaticci operated as a lone agent. It is misleading to assume that he represents the apex of British state collusion inside the IRA.”

Many of the cases that feature in the Kenova investigation do not involved Scappaticci at all, he said.

McDonald: ‘We will never forget those who have died’

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has responded to the Kenova report by reiterating that she is “sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict and the hurt and loss endured, without exception.”

She said: “We will never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. To all those who have suffered such grievous loss I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict and the hurt and loss endured, without exception. “The past cannot be changed or undone. Neither can the suffering or the hurt inflicted by all those involved in the conflict including the IRA.

“While the conflict is long over, intergenerational trauma and the search for truth and acknowledgment continues for many families. The hurt and the pain caused must never again be repeated. We must find ways to help people heal. Hardly a day or week goes by that there is not an anniversary of a past tragedy.

“Each such occasion evokes painful memories and as leader of Sinn Féin, I am committed to doing all that I can in healing the wounds of the past and achieving reconciliation. “Today I represent a new generation who were born into a time of conflict but because of the Good Friday Agreement, are now in a position to build the future in a time of peace. Although we are now twenty six years on from our peace agreement, this is something we can never take for granted and a responsibility I take most seriously.”

Jon Boutcher claims that M15 were sold a pup on the importance of Stakeknife as an agent.

“Like many other members in the security and intelligence community, some MI5 staff also appeared to have a tendency to view the Stakeknife case through rose-tinted spectacles. They had been sold an idealised narrative about a highly placed source inside the PIRA ISU bravely saving ‘countless’ or ‘hundreds’ of lives and naturally felt that this legend should be defended and not unfairly tarnished. Unfortunately, and as I outline below, this is a myth and the truth is much murkier.”

At his press conference, Kenova report author Jon Boutcher said the claim that Stakeknife’s intelligence saved “countless if not hundreds of lives is completely exaggerated and inherently implausible”.

“These claims belie the fact that Stakeknife was himself “involved in very serious and unjustifiable criminality, including murder”.

Stakeknife was one individual and it is not possible at this stage to know what intelligence he provided that prevented incidents, he said.

Mr Boutcher explained he had recovered 90 per cent of the intelligence reports attributed to Stakeknife and he estimated that the lives saved by his information was in the “high single figures to the low double figures and nowhere near hundreds”.

Even those figures did not take into account the lives Stakeknife himself took as the head of the ‘nutting squad’.

The idea of that a blind eye would be turned to the criminal activities of agents so long as they continued to provide information is something that would be “never, ever allowed today”, Mr Boutcher suggested.

The report does not name Freddie Scappaticci as Stakeknife, but it does have this to say about him.

“Mr Scappaticci died in March 2023 aged 77 without ever being charged with or convicted of any Troubles related offences and he always denied any wrongdoing or involvement with the security forces.

“Indeed, he brought a highly publicised but unsuccessful judicial review in 2003 to try and force the government to declare that he was not Stakeknife.

“These proceedings in turn gave rise to the perjury related allegations already mentioned above and dealt with in more detail later in this report.

“The security forces and the government have steadfastly refused to confirm or deny the allegations that Mr Scappaticci was an agent or that he was Stakeknife and, regardless of their truth or falsity, these allegations put Mr Scappaticci’s life at such risk that he was forced to leave Northern Ireland many years before his death.

“The truth about the identity of Stakeknife will have to be officially confirmed at some point, but I am not able to address it in this interim report and will have to leave this to my final report. That report will confirm the truth and set out the full facts and I am confident that publication will benefit and not harm the public interest.

“For now, it suffices to say that Mr Scappaticci was and still is inextricably bound up with and a critical person of interest at the heart of Operation Kenova.”

The Kenova interim report makes 10 recommendations.

1. Establish, on a statutory basis and with express statutory powers and duties, an independent framework and apparatus for investigating Northern Ireland legacy cases.

2. Subject all public authorities to an unqualified and enforceable legal obligation to co-operate with and disclose information and records to those charged with conducting Northern Ireland legacy investigations under a new structure.

3. Enact legislation to provide procedural time limits enforced by judicial case management to handle cases passing from a new legacy structure to the criminal justice system.

4. Review and reform the resourcing and operating practices of the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPSNI) in connection with Northern Ireland legacy cases.

5. The longest day, 21 June, should be designated as a day when we remember those lost, injured or harmed as a result of the Troubles.

6. Review, codify and define the proper limits of the Neither Confirm Nor Deny policy as it relates to the identification of agents and its application in the context of Northern Ireland legacy cases predating the Good Friday Agreement.

7. Review the security classification of previous Northern Ireland legacy reports in order that their contents and (at the very least) their principle conclusions and recommendations can be declassified and made public.

8. PPSNI should pay due regard to the views, interests and wellbeing of victims and families when considering the public interest factors relevant to prosecution decisions in Northern Ireland legacy cases.

Jon Boutcher is scathing about the blind eye that the republican leadership showed to victims of the IRA’s internal security unit (ISU), the so-called ‘nutting squad’ and their later claims to be concerned about human rights.

“Some of the PIRA senior leadership who commissioned the ISU would later be active in seeking fairness and human rights protections. There is a stark contrast between their public position and the wanton use of torture and murder against people from their community who were often innocent of the accusations made against them.

“PIRA used torture, inhumane behaviour and murder as a deterrent against people working with the security forces. It was often unconcerned as to the actual involvement of its victims in assisting the security forces. Some in the republican movement consider that these activities were legitimate acts of warfare. They were not.

“Having examined in detail what the ISU did to its victims, no one should be in any doubt that these crimes amount to some of the worst atrocities of the conflict. The republican leadership gave carte blanche to the ISU to commit acts of torture and murder, there was no internal accountability whatsoever.”

The Boutcher report found cases where agents working for the security services inside the Provisional IRA knowingly murdered another agent and cases where murders were committed where “it is arguable they were acting on behalf of the state”.

In his interim report Boutcher says agents saved many lives during the Troubles and “significantly degraded and debilitated the effectiveness of terrorist groups”.

However, in their effort to protect agents, the security services allowed serious crimes, including murder, to occur and to go unpunished, the report says.

The inquiry found “murders committed by agents, including cases where one agent knowingly or unknowingly murdered another, cases where agents were acting contrary to their instructions or tasking and cases where it is arguable that they were acting on behalf of the state”.

During today’s press conference, Jon Boutcher declined to provide a figure on the number of deaths connected to Stakeknife that could have been prevented, had the British state acted on intelligence and intervened.

Mr Boutcher told reporters that he wanted to provide this information to families first and hoped it would be available in the final Operation Kenova report, which is expected later this year.

Today’s publication relates to the interim findings of the Kenova team’s seven-year investigation.

The longest day, June 21st, should be designated as a day when we remember those lost, injured or harmed as a result of the Troubles, the Kenova report suggests.

Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris has said:

“There can be no doubt that the way Operation Kenova has conducted its work since being commissioned in 2016 has gained the trust of many families who have long been seeking answers as to what exactly happened when their loved ones were so brutally murdered by, and on the orders of, the Provisional IRA.

“Over 3,500 people from all parts of the community were killed during the Troubles and tens of thousands more injured. Over 1,000 of those killed were members of the security forces. Their bravery, courage, dedication and sacrifice in seeking to uphold democracy and the rule of law must never be forgotten.

“We must remember too that the vast majority of deaths during the Troubles, around 90 per cent, were perpetrated by terrorist organisations – in the substance of this report, by the Provisional IRA.

“As this is an ‘interim’ report, I will not comment at this time on behalf of the government on the detail of the report. It contains several specific, very serious allegations that remain subject to consideration by the courts.

“It would not be right for the government to make any comment on the substance of the Interim Report until the conclusion of litigation related to it. I note the recent decisions made by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland in relation to files passed to them by Operation Kenova, which once again go to show how difficult it is to achieve criminal justice outcomes in legacy cases.

“Due to numerous related civil cases, however, that remain ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time. There is also the prospect of appeals against any of the recent decisions made by the Director for Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland.

“I would like to put on record again my deepest sympathy with all the families who lost loved ones during the Troubles – including as a result of the actions of the Provisional IRA.”

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has issued a statement saying the Kenova report said the “futility, immorality, and the sordid nature of the Provisional IRA campaign is laid bare”.

He continued: “It reiterates that the PIRA was responsible for the most deaths in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, over 1,700.

“The report finds that the republican leadership has failed to acknowledge and apologise for the PIRA’s ‘murderous activities’ and the intimidation of families.

“The interim report is similarly unsparing in describing the actions of its so-called ‘Internal Security Unit’ as representing ‘the worst of what one human being will do to another’.

“Members of the PIRA’s ISU were responsible for “torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and murder, including of children, vulnerable adults, those with learning difficulties, and those who were entirely innocent of the claims made against them.

“These assaults and human rights violations were perpetrated to intimidate and subjugate the community,” Mr Martin said.

“The report is clear. The PIRA’s response to those who were supposed to have informed against it was torture and murder.

“Statements from very prominent Sinn Féin leaders at the time supported these actions.

“The PIRA used torture and inhumane treatment as a deterrent against people working with the security forces.

“The report finds that public comments of PIRA and Sinn Féin about the ISU’s conduct and the consequences of being an agent created an environment of significant intimidation for victim’s families within sections of the nationalist community,” he said.

“Not only did these families lose loved ones, they often faced humiliation and violence themselves.

“Sinn Féin as a political party must accept that the war was wrong, futile, and essentially an attack on its own community.”

The giant-size elephant in the room in the Kenova report is the absence of the name IRA informant Freddie Scappattici, aka Stakeknife.

The identity of Stakeknife has been known since 2003 yet the British government continues to adhere to the “never confirm, nor deny” principle when it came to spies.

Consequently the name of Scappattici is found nowhere in the 200-page interim report much to the chagrin of report author Jon Boucher who described the British government’s position as “untenable”.

Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, as well as the late Martin McGuinness, are named in the report in relation to the republican movement’s policy towards people alleged to be informers.

The PIRA’s response to those accused of being informers was “torture and murder,” the report says, and statements by republican leaders supported these actions.

“After PIRA murdered someone it accused of being an agent, republican leaders would routinely grandstand and intimidate the victims’ families.

“The ex-Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said at a news conference held close to the family home of a man murdered for allegedly being an agent that he ‘like everyone else living in West Belfast [knew] that the consequence for informing is death’.”

The report says that McGuinness, who it calls a “PIRA leader”, echoed Adams’s view in a TV interview with the BBC Spotlight programme after the murder of another alleged agent, saying that if “republican activists go over to the other side” they were aware of the penalty. Asked if this was death, McGuinness replied: “death, certainly”.

The PIRA usually murdered those accused by shooting them in the head, hence the internal security unit becoming known as the “nutting squad,” the report says.

“It left many of its victims’ bodies in public to deter other potential agents,” the report says.

Sometimes audio recording was released by the PIRA in which victims appeared to admit helping the security forces. Such recordings “should be disregarded”, the report says. “The ISU made some false promises that, should they confess to assisting the security forces, it would stop mistreating them.”

Typically, the report says, the PIRA “did not live up to its undertakings and executed many of those who had made admissions in a vain attempt to stay alive, not necessarily because they had assisted the security forces in any way.”

Kenova report author Jon Boutcher has said at the press conference that there is no debt of gratitude owed to Stakeknife for his work as an agent.

He said it was vital that the security forces could recruit and work with agents who seek to help protect society from terrorism and organised crime.

While doing so, agents and the security forces had to work within the rule of law. “That is what society expects. In these cases, that did not happen.”

The PSNI has issued the following statement:

Deputy Chief Constable Chris Todd said: “In June 2016 the then Chief Constable, Sir George Hamilton, asked Jon Boutcher to independently lead Operation Kenova, the investigation into a range of activities surrounding the alleged army agent known as Stakeknife. This decision followed a referral from the Public Prosecution Service after they had received information from the Office of the Police Ombudsman.

“In appointing Mr Boutcher as Chief Constable last year, the Northern Ireland Policing Board agreed that he would then recuse himself of decisions such as that relating to the publication of the interim report, so that responsibility now sits with me.

“Having worked carefully through the protocol on publication with all relevant stakeholders I am pleased that we are able to publish the interim report today and ensure that the families and loved ones of victims are afforded this vital next step in their quest for the truth they deserve.

“I would like to thank the Operation Kenova Team for the thorough and professional investigation they have conducted.

“The report outlines the challenges faced in conducting legacy investigations but also highlights that no matter how difficult such investigations can be they must remain victim focused and the needs of the families who have lost loved ones must always be to the fore during any such investigations.

“The interim report serves as a stark reminder of the pain and suffering continuing to be felt by all of the families of those killed and injured during the Troubles.

“The report highlights once again the enormous challenges being faced by security forces during the Troubles and acknowledges they overwhelmingly sought to act in the public interest and that their immense sacrifice and the losses they suffered should never be forgotten.

“The deficiencies and failings regarding the handling and dissemination of intelligence by police, many of which have been highlighted repeatedly in the past, have been addressed by the restructuring of our intelligence systems and processes through the formation of Crime Department.

“The report makes a number of recommendations and we will share the report with our partners and HM Government and will continue to play our part in finding a lasting solution to our troubled past. The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 will see the establishment of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) and we will support this new body once it commences operations on May 1st, 2024.”

A review of the files attributable to Stakeknife led Jon Boutcher to estimate the number of people whose lives were saved “is between high single figures and low double figures and nowhere near the hundreds sometimes claimed”.

“Crucially this is not a net estimate because it does not take account of the lives lost as a consequence of Stakeknife continued operation as an agent and from what I have seen, I think it is probable that this resulted in more lives being lost than saved,” he states.

“Furthermore there were undoubtedly occasions when Stakeknife ignored his handlers, acted outside his tasking and did things he should have done and when very serious risks were run.”

Because of “wild public and media allegations” about him, “many inside the security forces believe Stakeknife was better than he was, while many on the outside fear he was worse than he was. As ever the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.”

Claims that intelligence provided by Stakeknife saved “countless” or “hundreds of lives” appeared to derive from the British Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU) – a controversial unit that recruited and handled informers – and assessments were based on “unreliable and speculative internal metrics which were also used to produced similar and equally exaggerated claims about [another agent] Brian Nelson”, according to report.

Notwithstanding this, these claims were widely accepted within the security services and they have led many on the inside to view the case through rose-tinted spectacles and to feel defensive about Stakeknife’s reputation.

“In reality, the claims are inherently implausible and should ring alarm bells: any serious security and intelligence professional hearing any agent being linked to the “goose that laid the golden eggs” – as Stakeknife was – should be on the alert because the comparison is rooted in fables and fairy tales.”

The families of those accused of being informers – in many instances wrongly accused – suffered greatly as a result, according to the report, including suffering physical and psychological abuse.

“This often resulted in long-standing physical and mental health issues for those who survived. Some were banished from their homes into isolation. Often victims were entirely innocent of the accusations made against them. Countless survivors of these crimes have suffered premature deaths, self-harm, and addiction. Families have become fractured. They constitute a group of victims that is forgotten by the authorities and shunned by the communities.”

The report says the statistics of its casework covered 101 murders and abductions, leading to great human tragedy.

“The families of those killed often suffered their own alarming intimidation and vile treatment having done absolutely nothing wrong. They were not allowed to grieve publicly. Even today, victims and families suffer the consequences of being labelled as agents or the friend or family of an agent.”

The report calls for a designated day – the longest day of the year, June 21st – as one to remember those “lost, injured or harmed as a result of the Troubles”.

It also recommends that the UK government and IRA issue apologies to victims.

“The UK government should acknowledge and apologise to bereaved families and surviving victims, affected by cases where an individual was harmed or murdered because they were accused or suspected of being an agent and where this was preventable, or where the perpetrators could and should have been subjected to criminal justice and were not,” it states.

“The republican leadership should issue a full apology for PIRA [Provisional IRA] abduction, torture and murder of those it accused or suspected of being agents during the Troubles and acknowledge the loss and unacceptable intimidation that bereaved families and surviving victims have suffered.”

There have been no convictions of those responsible for PIRA murders of people it accused of being agents, “despite there often being a rich and actionable evidential picture”, according to the report.

The report says this failure made be due to “dogmatic” implementation of the UK’s “neither confirm nor deny” policy in relation to alleged agents, which also prevents disclosure to families.

“Some of those accused by the PIRA of being agents did assist the security forces, but others did not.”

Those who did work as agents did so at great personal risk and those who recruited them and handled them, the security forces, and wider government, owed them a duty of care “that was all too often ignored. These individuals would surely have expected the agencies they were working for to at least try to protect them and bring to justice anyone who harmed or killed them.”

Report author Jon Boutcher has described the actions of the IRA towards informants as “the most shameful and evil I have encountered”.

He went on to state that the security forces and the State also had questions to answer.

However, he went on to state: “It was the PIRA leadership that commissioned and sanctioned the activities that its ISU carried out. It [was the] PIRA that committed the brutal acts of torture and murder, each evil act being the epitome of cowardice.

“Senior republicans who condoned, and still condone, these activities are reprehensible. The republican leadership should acknowledge and accept these crimes were wrong and apologise to the victims and the families of those tortured and murdered.”

Colm Keena reports: The Home Office guidelines that were in existence during the Troubles for the management of “informants who take part in crime” were not suitable for the conflict in Northern Ireland, according to the report.

They could not be followed and were “routinely ignored”. The inadequacy of the guidelines allowed an environment to evolve where people “were tortured or killed without efforts being made to protect them or bring agents responsible for serious crimes to justice”.

A maverick culture developed with high -takes “dark arts” being conducted “off the books”, the report said.

“The absence of a legal framework to manage agent activities was discussed at cabinet level during the Troubles, but it was not until the passing of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 that agent handling became properly regulated.”

The Provisional IRA falsely accused some of its members of being informers because of internal hierarchal disputes, clashes over PIRA criminal activities, and, on occasion, with a view to “eliminate partners for those involved in extramarital disputes”, the report said.

The Kenova investigation has established that some of those alleged to be informants or agents were not working for the security forces, the report said, but were the subject of accusations motivated by reasons other than suspicion.

In 1999 The Sunday Times revealed through the former FRU agent Ian Hurst that there was a mole at the highest level in the IRA.

Freddie Scappaticci was finally named as that mole in May 2003. Scappaticci, with his lawyer present, read out a prepared statement to say that he was never an informant.

When asked if he had been in the IRA, he would only say he had been in the republican movement but had not been involved for 13 years.

Scappaticci fled to England and lived the rest of his life there under an assumed name. In 2018 he was prosecuted for having child pornography in his possession and given a suspended sentence. He died last year.

It is thought that Scappaticci became an IRA intelligence officer in 1976.

The Internal Security Unit (ICU), better known as the nutting squad, was started in the autumn of 1978. It was the same year that the British army set up the Force Research Unit (FRU) to deal with IRA informers.

According to Richard O’Rawe in his book Stakeknife’s Dirty War, published last year, the FRU was operational from 1980 to 1995 and is said to have been responsible for running more than 100 agents, including Scappaticci.

It was set up to keep internal discipline within the IRA and to root out informers. The punishment for informing was death. Scappaticci was second in command to John Joe McGee.

Scappaticci would tell terrified informers that they would live if they revealed what they had told British security forces – “they think they’re going home, but they don’t”.

Who was Freddie Scappaticci?

He was the grandson of an Italian emigrant, Bernardo Scappaticci and his wife Marie Magliocco, who emigrated from central Italy to Belfast in the late 19th century.

Freddie Scappaticci was born on January 12th, 1946, and grew up in the Markets area of Belfast as the third eldest of five children.

Despite being of diminutive stature, Scappaticci was known as a violent bully from an early age. He was one of the “69ers” – those who joined after the communal riots of August 1969 in Belfast. He was picked up during internment in 1971 and jailed for four years.

He was released in January 1974 and began a lucrative career as a bricklayer. Some sources suggest that his decision to become an informer was linked to a tax scam he was involved in that could have resulted in him spending eight years in prison.

A report on the activities of the British army’s top IRA agent during the Troubles has been published.

The independent report on the high-ranking double agent Stakeknife – widely identified as senior Belfast IRA member Freddie Scappaticci – has taken seven years and cost approximately £40 million (€46 million).

Operation Kenova, the findings of which were unveiled in a Belfast hotel at 11am, investigated whether police in Northern Ireland failed to investigate as many as 18 murders to protect Scappaticci, a former Belfast bricklayer regarded as the “golden egg” of British military intelligence.

Kenova has examined the activities of Stakeknife within the Provisional IRA. The investigation has examined crimes such as murder and torture, and the role played by the security services, including MI5.

Scappaticci, who was connected to 18 murders, died last year at the age of 77. He will not be named in the report due to a UK government policy of “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) relating to sensitive intelligence issues.

The Irish Times understands that the report is expected to find that multiple lives could have been saved during the Troubles, had state forces acted on intelligence.

The North’s Public Prosecution Service announced in February that five retired British soldiers and seven alleged IRA members investigated as part of the inquiry will not be prosecuted due to “insufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction”.

The PA news agency reports the 200-page report will call for apologies from the UK government and the IRA to bereaved families and surviving victims.

It is also expected to call for a review into the UK government policy of neither confirming nor denying sensitive information relating to intelligence issues.

The Kenova investigation was originally headed up by Jon Boutcher but he left the position to take up the role of chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) last November.