The dogs in the street, and not just those in West Belfast, know that senior IRA figure Freddie Scappaticci was agent Stakeknife. On Wednesday in the Dáil, Taoiseach Micheál Martin formally identified him.
“The identity of Stakeknife is clear to everybody here and I have previously stated that the agent should be officially named by the UK government,” Martin declared during a debate on Operation Kenova, the investigation into his actions.
“It is widely known that Stakeknife was Freddie Scappaticci. He was recruited by the British army, with whom he worked between the late 1970s and 1990s. He was a prized informant,” Martin told TDs.
“The British army dedicated a 24-hour phone line within its intelligence section to his calls. Throughout this time Stakeknife was implicated in what were by any measure ‘grotesque and serious’ crimes committed for and with the Provisional IRA,” he went on.
The news wires clattered quickly. “Taoiseach names Stakeknife in Irish parliament,” declared BBC Northern Ireland. “Taoiseach names Freddie Scappaticci as former British agent Stakeknife in Dáil,” said the Belfast Telegraph.
Martin’s words came shortly after 1.30pm. Two hours before, in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Hilary Benn had, however, yet again fended off calls to identify Stakeknife.
In truth, Martin had not made a huge diplomatic step in a bid to heighten pressure on London. “Simply transparency, no more,” an adviser told The Irish Times.
Yet, it has had that effect. In Belfast, Martin’s decision was carefully noted, including by solicitor Kevin Winters, who represents families of those killed during the Troubles, including some at Scappaticci’s hands.
The Taoiseach, speaking in the Dáil, has named Freddie Scappaticci as the former British agent known as Stakeknife. Video: Oireachtas TV
“There has been an upward trajectory towards naming him,” he said, noting Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher’s “very strong commentary” when the report on Operation Kenova was published in early December.
On Monday, the House of Commons’ Northern Ireland Affairs Committee acknowledged it “is not normal practice to name agents, but in this one instance it is appropriate, proportionate and strongly in the public interest”.
Such an action, said MPs, would “build trust and confidence”, and send a message to undercover agents today that if they are “guilty of conduct beyond acceptable limits that they will not be protected, or shielded”.
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The consistent refusal of British administrations – Labour, or Conservative – to name Scappaticci is based upon the decades-old policy that they will “neither confirm nor deny” agents’ identities.
In the Commons on Wednesday, the chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Welsh MP Tonia Antoniazzi, said her all-party committee had unanimously backed naming Scappaticci.
However, the Northern Ireland Secretary insisted the United Kingdom’s supreme court judgment published in December in the case of Liam Paul “Topper” Thompson must be properly studied first. Thompson was murdered by the Ulster Defence Association in 1994. His family have long alleged that a British agent was involved. Coroner Louisa Fee sought access to intelligence records, only to be blocked by Benn.
Lawyers for Benn argued that the British government’s judgment about the national security risk created by identification should take precedence, and that the courts should defer to the executive’s wishes.
Two weeks ago, lawyers for the family of Anthony McKiernan pressed for intelligence files on his killing in January 1988 by the IRA, who dubbed him an informer – a charge his family have always denied.
Scappaticci and McKiernan were friends; their children slept in each other’s homes. The relationship did not save McKiernan’s life. In January 1988, Scappaticci sent a young boy to McKiernan’s door asking him to come to his home. Twenty-four hours later, McKiernan’s body was found dumped on Mica Drive, not far from the Falls Road, with his family in West Belfast living under a cloud as McKiernan had been branded a British informer.
The Thompson case does not lay down in stone that agents can never be identified, Winters argued. “It’s still a live issue,” he told The Irish Times. “Thompson does not mean that ‘neither confirm nor deny’ is a complete blanket.”
For Antoniazzi, however, the British government is hiding behind the supreme court, arguing that some senior British officials do not accept that the Thompson case blocks identification.
The decision by the Taoiseach to formally name Scappaticci is “very good news”, she told The Irish Times, adding his decision to do so should be noted by No 10 Downing Street.
“There’s a matter of urgency here. It needs to be done on the floor of the Commons. Now that it’s been mentioned in the Dáil, it needs to be done here. There’s no need to kick the can down the road,” she said.
British intelligence agents today can be assured that they will be protected, she said, “but if you are an agent for the state and you behave in the manner of Scappaticci, you will not be looked after”.
Such agents are better controlled now, she believed. In general, they should not be named “but this is a case where a murderous individual, now passed away, there is no harm in naming him. It is a nonsense not to do so.”