MPs urge government to name Stakeknife as a 'signal' to rogue agents

MPs have urged the government to drop its refusal to confirm the identity of the spy known as Stakeknife, saying it would send a message that state agents' anonymity will not be protected if they "cross a line".

The government has never confirmed the identity of the Army agent, who has been linked to 14 murders while working at the heart of the IRA during the Troubles.

Stakeknife was the late Freddie Scappaticci, who died in 2023.

The final report of a £40m investigation into his crimes, was published last year but did not name him. The UK government said the secretary of state will update Parliament as soon as he can.

MPs in the cross-party Northern Ireland Affairs Committee have said state agents "guilty of conduct beyond acceptable limits" should not be "shielded from the consequences of their actions".

The chair of the committee, Tonia Antoniazzi, said the lack of formal identification was having "a profound and lasting effect" on Stakeknife's victims and their families.

"By naming Stakeknife, the government can send a strong signal that agents who cross a line will not receive the protection of anonymity," Antoniazzi said.

The MPs released their own report into the issue on Monday, after taking evidence from officers who led the nine-year investigation into Stakeknife, known as Operation Kenova.

The committee said they had been reassured that naming Stakeknife would not put active state agents at risk, nor compromise the future recruitment of new agents.

In a statement, the government said the "behaviour described in Operation Kenova's final report is deeply disturbing".

"It should not have happened, and in recent decades there have been significant reforms to agent handling practice, including through legislation."

It said that the "use of agents is nowadays subject to strict regulation, overseen by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal".

It added that the government is not yet in a position to formally respond to the request by Operation Kenova to name Stakeknife as "there remains ongoing litigation and consideration of the recent judgment in the Thompson Supreme Court case".

Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Claire Hanna said it was "time for the UK government and the republican movement to face up to the challenges of truth and reconciliation".

She said the government policy of neither confirming nor denying (NCND) was "slowing down the access to justice for families".

She claimed the policy has been deviated from in other cases, and has called for a similar exception for Stakeknife.

Hanna argued that the blanket application of NCND does not acknowledge "what went on in the dirty war" and said not publicly naming the agent is "costing victims time, and the public money".

Kenova was initially led by the now chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Jon Boutcher but is now headed up by Sir Iain Livingstone.

In a statement, Boutcher said he endorsed the recommendation calling for the government identification of Stakeknife.

"Sir Iain Livingstone and I gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in January and today I welcome their report.

"This would bring much needed closure to many victims and families," he said.

Boutcher said the application of NCND must not be allowed to cover up acts of wrongdoing by the state.

Sir Iain has also welcomed the report: "As I made clear in the Kenova final report, we believe there is a compelling ethical case to reveal Stakeknife's true identity.

Lawyers who represent relatives of some of those murdered by the IRA said at the time that not naming Stakeknife in the report was "insulting to the families".

Scappaticci was alleged to have been the most high-ranking British agent within the Provisional IRA, who was given the codename Stakeknife by the Army.

He was the grandson of an Italian immigrant who came to Northern Ireland in the 1940s search of work.

Scappaticci was raised in the Irish republican stronghold of west Belfast where he would find work as a bricklayer.

During the height of the Troubles in the early 1970s, he was among hundreds of people who were interned without trial during civil unrest.

In the late 1970s he was reportedly beaten up by the IRA following a row with a senior member of the paramilitary group.

It was around this time that the Army is believed to have recruited Scappaticci as a paid spy within the IRA.

By the 1980s, he was a leading figure within the IRA's internal security unit which was set up to hunt down informers who were leaking information to the police.

The unit was known as the "nutting squad" because they often shot alleged informers in the head - the nut - before dumping their tortured bodies.

In 2003, media organisations unmasked Scappaticci as Stakeknife - the feared spy who had set up other IRA informers for murder.

Scappaticci denied the allegation but then went into hiding in England, where it is believed he lived for two decades under MI5 protection.

In 2016, the then Bedfordshire Chief Constable Jon Boutcher was appointed to lead a multi-million pound investigation into the activities and handling of Stakeknife.

The nine-year investigation would eventually find MI5 was aware of Stakeknife's "involvement in serious criminality" and received regularly briefings about him.

It also found that his Army handlers twice took him out of Northern Ireland for a holiday "when they knew he was wanted by the [police] for conspiracy to murder".

The Kenova report also said Scappaticci probably took more lives than he saved.

In 2023, while the Operation Kenova investigation was still ongoing, Scappaticci died at the age of 77.

In the UK there is a long-standing state policy of NCND when responding to questions about sensitive national security matters.

NCND has been adopted by successive governments and security services - often they will not even acknowledge if the requested information even exists.

This position is adopted in order to protect the identities of people who operate undercover on behalf of the state, or who take risks to assist the security forces.

But last month, the NI Affairs Committee took evidence from Operation Kenova investigators, who had previously called for Stakeknife to be named.

"Given the reassurances we've heard that active agents won't be put in harm's way and future recruitment won't be compromised, formal identification in this specific instance is appropriate, proportionate and in the public interest," Antoniazzi said.