'Stakeknife' Scappaticci gone into hiding
The British army’s top agent inside the IRA was in hiding today after his cover was blown in an exposure that rocked the republican movement to its core.
Senior security sources confirmed the man identified as Stakeknife was Alfredo ‘Freddie’ Scappaticci, military intelligence’s most powerful spy, who had initially resisted warnings to get out of the North because his security had been compromised.
He has now moved out of the hardline Andersonstown area of west Belfast following one of the most dramatic and astonishing disclosures in the history of the British government’s covert war against the Provos.
Several Sunday newspapers in Ireland and Scotland, and websites claimed Scappaticci, in his late 50s, was recruited by the British army after rising through the IRA ranks to head its Internal Security Unit – the so-called Nutting Squad.
Ex-IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre, who quit the organisation when the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was signed, claimed the republican leadership may have been dealt a fatal blow.
He said: “This is potentially devastating for the IRA.
“If it’s true that Stakeknife was the head of internal security then it’s a major coup for the British. It would mean they have been steering republican strategy for years.”
Allegations against the agent, who has penetrated right to the heart of the terror organisation, include links with up to 40 murders after he was recruited by an ultra-secret British army unit, the Force Research Unit.
Scotland Yard chief John Stevens is expected to quiz the agent about a spate of vicious sectarian murders within days.
The Metropolitan Commissioner, who has reported on shocking levels of FRU collusion with loyalist killers in Northern Ireland, wants to question Stakeknife about claims that innocent Catholics and other agents were murdered to protect the agent’s 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.”
Security force and republican sources last night confirmed Scappaticci was no longer at his west Belfast home.
Earlier, attempts to locate him had been met with fierce resistance.
Stakeknife, who lived at addresses in both Belfast and Dublin and was interned during the 1970s, has spent decades in the IRA.
He was tasked with uncovering informers and headed the Northern Command’s security for almost two decades.
The British government allegedly paid him up to £80,000 (€111,244) a year into a secret bank account for information he was able to provide as it waged its dirty war against militant republicans.
Stakeknife is thought to have been involved in the killings of loyalists, policemen, soldiers, and civilians to protect his cover so he could keep passing vital intelligence.
Mr McIntyre claimed grassroots were horrified by the revelations.
He said: “People are aghast at this. They are saying, how can you trust anyone when someone like this has been identified?”
