‘Double agent’ avoids interview

A WOMAN glared through the glass-panelled front door of Freddie Scappaticci’s west Belfast home yesterday and made it clear that the alleged double agent was in no mood for talking.

Her face contorted with rage, she spat out the words: "We are not talking to you. All you want to do is print s**t."

Less than 24 hours earlier Mr Scappaticci the man alleged to be Stakeknife, the British Army's top spy in the IRA sensationally emerged in the city to protest his innocence.

His brief reappearance had raised more questions than answers, but there was no sign he was prepared to elaborate. Others inside the immaculately kept semi-detached house in the staunchly nationalist and republican Andersonstown district angrily rejected all approaches.

Elsewhere in Belfast last night, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams warned that the British Government had given those who oppose change in Northern Ireland an advantage by creating a political vacuum.

Speaking ahead of a hunger strike rally in Belfast, Mr Adams warned the political process was in great danger.

He said: "The multiple suspensions of the Assembly by the British Government, the rejection by the (British and Irish) governments and the unionists of seismic initiatives by republicans; the failure to implement the Good Friday Agreement and the cancellations of the elections have all created a political vacuum.

"This is being filled by those who letter-bombed the Ulster Unionist Party office, by the continued activities of unionist paramilitaries and by the securocrats.

"There is now a period of uncertainty with the upcoming marching season and the threat which is posed to beleaguered nationalist communities.

"All of this arises from the strategic and scientific application of a programme for change which Sinn Féin has been pursuing," he said.

With the peace process deadlocked over demands on the IRA to spell out clearly an end to all paramilitary activity, the West Belfast MP attacked the British Government for giving "an advantage to those who want to stop change".

In a reference to the flood of allegations about Scappaticci, the Sinn Féin president claimed securocrats were also trying to undermine the peace process with "an avalanche of briefings" to a "largely compliant" media.

"The agenda being pursued is a wreckers' agenda. The conflict here requires a political solution that is self-evident. But for years attempts to bring about a political solution was prevented.

"It is being opposed now by those within the British system who want to cover up the practice of illegal and criminal behaviour including the killing of citizens," he said.

The West Belfast MP said the British and Irish Governments had a duty to stop those people within their systems who were trying to undermine the process.

In particular, he insisted Prime Minister Tony Blair would have to stand up to those in the British system intent on wrecking the process.