IRA mole linked to at least 18 murders in North

A senior IRA figure who became one of Britain’s most prized spies in the North has been linked to at least 18 murders.

Many of the victims also worked for British Intelligence and were apparently sacrificed to protect the identity of Freddie Scappaticci, code-named ‘Stakeknife’, so he could continue to spy for British Intelligence.

A BBC Panorama investigation reveals that Scappaticci, from an Italian immigrant family, doubled as a British agent and the IRA’s top spy-catcher.

In an interview with John Ware to be broadcast tonight, Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory tells the programme a classified report detailing Stakeknife’s connection to these murders “made for very disturbing and chilling reading”.

Some of the 18 victims are themselves understood to be agents or informers providing information to the British security forces in the North during the Troubles.

Stakeknife became head of the IRA’s internal security unit in the 1980s.

It was also known as the ‘Nutting Squad’ because it rooted out suspected British spies and interrogated them before shooting them dead.

In 2015, Mr McGrory asked the chief constable of the PSNI, George Hamilton, to investigate allegations that Scappaticci was involved in up to 50 murders.

He set up a £35m (€41m) criminal inquiry named Operation Kenova which is investigating whether Stakeknife’s fellow spies were sacrificed by his security services controllers so that he could continue as a British spy.

Panorama’s own investigation suggests that Stakeknife’s protection as a prized agent was prioritised over the lives of other agents.

The programme highlights the case of Joe Fenton, an agent working for the RUC’s Special Branch who was killed by the IRA. Stakeknife had alerted his own British Army handlers that Fenton had been targeted for execution but no action appears to have been taken to prevent the killing.

The 35-year-old father of four was shot dead on February 26, 1989, shortly after Stakeknife left the house where Mr Fenton was being held by the Nutting Squad, having forced him to confess after a violent struggle.

Former operatives from British military intelligence, Special Branch, and MI5 are being investigated by Operation Kenova, led by a former counter terrorism detective Jon Boutcher, now chief constable of Bedfordshire.

Meanwhile, a British soldier who killed a “totally innocent” teenager when he fired close to a crowd of youths was unjustified in discharging the fatal round, a coroner has ruled.

Manus Deery, 15, was killed as he stood near a chip shop in Derry socialising with friends in May 1972. His sister Helen said her family’s campaign for a new inquest had been vindicated by the coroner’s ruling.

“We always knew Manus was innocent,” she said.

The teenager, who had just started his first job two weeks before he died, was struck in the head by fragments of a bullet that ricocheted off a wall.

It was fired by a soldier from a fortified observation sanger high above the Bogside area on Derry’s historic city walls.

Coroner Mr Justice Adrian Colton, who presided over a fresh inquest into one of the most contentious deaths of the Troubles, rejected the soldier’s claim that he fired at a gunman.

Panorama: The Spy In The IRA, airs at 10.45pm on BBC One Northern Ireland