Stevens may quiz 'Stakeknife'

Scotland Yard chief John Stevens could quiz the British army’s top spy inside the IRA about a spate of sectarian murders within days, it emerged today.

The Metropolitan Commissioner confirmed urgent plans to question the mole, codenamed Stakeknife, who went into hiding just before his identity was exposed in several Sunday newspapers.

Republicans in Belfast and Dublin were left stunned by the revelations about the former head of the Provos Internal Security Unit and General Headquarters Staff member.

He is suspected of being involved in dozens of murders after being recruited by British military intelligence’s ultra-secret Force Research Unit.

Stevens who has reported on shocking levels of FRU collusion with loyalist killers in Northern Ireland, wants to probe the spy about claims that innocent Catholics and other agents were murdered to protect his identity.

He said: “We will be questioning Stakeknife soon. We fear other informants have been sacrificed to save him and we will be asking him about that.”

The man named as Stakeknife has lived at addresses both in Belfast and Dublin, but it is believed his British army handlers pulled him out and sent him to a safe house in England just before his cover was blown.

The top spy was in charge of the IRA’s so-called Nutting Squad - which was tasked with tracing down informers - and head of the Northern Command security for almost two decades.

He is alleged to have been involved in the killings of loyalists, policemen, soldiers, and civilians to protect his cover so he could keep passing vital intelligence.

Stakeknife was said to have provided his military handlers with the information which led to the so-called Death on the Rock killings of three IRA volunteers in Gibraltar in 1988 by the SAS.

And he provided the information which led to the arrest of former Sinn Fein publicity chief Danny Morrison at a house in Belfast where a suspected IRA informer was being held, it was claimed.

Files based on intelligence from the double-agent were forwarded to every British Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair.

The claims emerged just weeks after Stevens published his devastating findings of collusion between police and soldiers and loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Up to 20 members of the security forces, both serving and retired, may face criminal prosecutions as a result of his report.

The man named as Stakeknife was reported to have been a low-level informant in the IRA’s west Belfast brigade before being subjected to a punishment beating by the terrorist grouping during the late 1970s.

He offered his services to the British army before he rose through the ranks of the Provisional movement.

As Nutting Squad chief he vetted every IRA volunteer recruited into the organisation for nearly 20 years, it was claimed.

The names of every Provisional were in the hands of the FRU after he was recruited.

Among those allegedly murdered to save him was west Belfast pensioner Francisco Notorantonio.

FRU handlers, it has been claimed, redirected loyalist assassins to the 66-year-old after learning that they planned to kill Stakeknife.

Sinn Fein refused to comment on the claims about Stakeknife’s identity.

A party spokesman said: “There won’t be anybody saying anything about this.”

But Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said he was not shocked that the security forces had apparently penetrated so far into the IRA.

He added: “It is the key way in which the paramilitaries have been ground down and brought close to defeat in Northern Ireland.

“The authorities job is to get intelligence, that means turning people who are members of paramilitary organisations or finding someone who will penetrate them.”