Stakeknife

[Jan Klimkowski]

Magda - thank you.

There are several threads on DPF exploring whether Freddie Scappaticci really was Stakeknife, the highest British intelligence / FRU asset inside the IRA.

There are allegations that Stakeknife was in fact Gerry Adams, or even Martin McGuinness.

The Scappaticci interviews above, with investigative documentary programme The Cook Report, were conducted in 1993.

Involvement with the Cook Report

In 1993 Scappaticci approached the ITV programme The Cook Report and agreed to an interview on his activities in the IRA and the alleged role of Martin McGuinness in the organisation. The first interview took place on 26 August 1993 at the Culloden Hotel in Cultra, County Down. This interview was, unknown to Scappaticci, recorded and eventually found its way into an edition of the programme. The interview was posted on the World Wide Web as the 2003 allegations against Scappaticci surfaced.

Scappaticci appears to give intimate details of the modus operandi of the IRA's Northern Command, indicated some of his previous involvement in the organisation and alleges, amongst other things, that Martin McGuinness was involved in the death of Frank Hegarty - an IRA volunteer who had been killed as an informer by the IRA in 1986. It has since been alleged that Scappaticci knew the intimate details of Hegarty's killing because, as part of his duties in the ISU, he had actually been involved in the interrogation and execution over the matter of a large Libyan arms find which the Gardaí made. Ingram states that Hegarty was a FRU agent who he and other FRU members had encouraged to rise through the organisation and gain the confidence of key IRA members. His allegations indicate that, to the handlers of the FRU, it was more important to keep Stakeknife in place rather than save the life of Hegarty.

Scappaticci was not publicly named as Stakeknife until 2003.

I don't remember the Scappaticci interview being broadcast in the 1990s, and one has to imagine he would have executed by the IRA if it had been.

Prima facie, the contents and timing of the interview have the feel of being authorised.

The interview is the strongest evidence I have seen that Scappaticci was Stakeknife, and that his 1993 interview was authorised by his British intelligence handler.