The Operation Kenova report on Stakeknife makes it clear MI5 were aware of Scappaticci’s activities from his initial recruitment. They were involved in briefing and tasking him via his FRU handlers. MI5 broke into Kenova’s document safe while they were working in the Services offices.
Kenova is a PSNI commissioned report, authored by two former senior policemen. A previous senior British police officer, John Stevens, wrote a highly critical report on collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries while the Army were running UDA intelligence officer and Army/FRU agent Brian Nelson.
Stevens pointed the finger at British Army Intelligence’s Force Research Unit. Secret Army Intelligence documents (above) from 1990 accused the RUC of ignoring their warnings. The same arguments are playing out in the Stakeknife case.
According to solicitor Kevin Winters, who represents families of victims of Scappaticci and other agents in the ISU, the British Government have entered discussions about compensation.
Introduction
In spring 2012 retired British Army Major David Moyles gave evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal about an agent he called ‘Steaknife’. The agent was clearly Freddie Scappaticci.
Moyles’ intention was to rebut assertions made at the Tribunal by other witnesses about ‘Steaknife’ and Garda collusion.
Covert History believes Moyles evidence is significant. This article is an introduction to the transcript of Moyle’s oral evidence. Major Moyles was given the cipher number witness 82 at the Tribunal.
1. 1976.
In 1976 Peter Jones, serving as a Sergeant in the Devon and Dorset regiment was appointed Battalion Intelligence Officer based at Queens Street RUC Station – a fateful posting. Like his Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Colin Shortis, Jones had learned his skill in the twilight of colonialism serving in Kenya. The Kitson doctrine of running countergangs and agents came into play in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
According to the former GOC John Wilsey in his book ‘The Ulster Tales’, Shortis:
“had a keener understanding than most of the importance of acquiring intelligence by the unit’s own efforts, rather than being delivered from high”.
Between 1973 and ‘74 Shortis led the Northern Ireland Training and Advisory Team. NITAT, a cover name for The Special Reconnaissance Unit also called 14th Field and Intelligence Company, took over from the MRF, and operated as a highly secret covert intelligence unit.
In 1974 Robert Nairac transferred to South Armagh as Part of 14th Intelligence. He was based at Castledillon House with a stock of ‘black’ [unattributable] weapons. Ostensibly he was the liaison between the RUC and Army but in reality he operated as an agent provocateur between republicans and Loyalists. The new methods of engaging in counterterrorism as advocated by Colin Shortis led to Nairac’s murder by the IRA in 1977. His body has never been found.
Peter Jones, as company intelligence officer, was tasked with acquiring intelligence assets in Belfast, often in competition with the RUC.
Enter Freddie Scappaticci who Wilsey would describe as the Army’s ‘Golden Egg’, a description of which Jon Boutcher as head of Operation Kenova was sceptical. Jones recruited or more likely took over the running of Scappaticci around 1977 though it is possible Scappaticci had already been identified as a future asset on or after his release from internment in 1974. Scappaticci was a successful builder by the mid seventies, showing conspicuous signs of wealth through building work, lucrative tax scams and possibly other sources.
In 1976 Scappaticci was debriefing volunteers who had been released post-internment as Belfast Brigade Intelligence Officer.
“By the end of 1976 Freddie was back in the IRA, operating as a Belfast Brigade Intelligence Officer. In this capacity, he was debriefing volunteers who were released from interrogation centres. Diarmuid O’Toole said, “I’m not exactly sure who talent-spotted Scap, but even then he was recognised as a top man when it came to debriefing the volunteers who were being released from Castlereagh…” [Richard O’Rawe ‘Stakeknife’s Dirty War’, 2023].
2. Penetrating the IRA’s cellular structure.
In 1977 the IRA reorganisation into cell structures necessitated the creation of the Internal Security Unit and, fortuitously or not, in 1978 Scappaticci was appointed as second in command to J. J. Magee. Centralisation meant control with Scappaticci and Magee as praetorian guards of the leadership.
“Around this time ‘Kerbstone’ [as Scappaticci’s pseudonym in Wilsey’s book] was elevated in the IRA from the fringes to a position where he was privy to its innermost secrets. The rise and fall of IRA volunteers was often abrupt so this was not unprecedented. But first the evidence had to be verified.. When done, it was apparent that a significant new opportunity for the Security Forces had emerged”. [‘The Ulster Tales’ by John Wilsey, 2012]
IRA discipline was now reinforced by fear and by British agents.
Jones’ handling of a valuable agent as Scappaticci became, was to see him promoted out of his Battalion into 3 Brigade Intelligence in Belfast. Scappaticci’s product was now available to the top echelons of the army, MI5 and the RUC.
For his work Jones was awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal for bravery in 1980. The citation said it was for activities between August and October 1979 in Northern Ireland.
“His citation records that he had run an agent successfully ‘for longer than any other handler in the Northern Ireland Campaign, and in particularly hazardous circumstances’” [‘The Ulster Tales’ by John Wilsey, 2012]
The activities for which Jones was awarded a medal took place a few short weeks after the interrogation and execution in July 1979 of Michael Kearney, a twenty year old Belfast volunteer who was interrogated by the ISU, including Scappaticci. He had been held for days then shot dead on a roadside on the Cavan/Fermanagh border by a Tyrone volunteer who had received an order to shoot an alleged informer.
Michael Kearney had given an honest response to his IRA interrogators including Scappaticci about how much, or how little information he had given to the Special Branch during an interrogation in Castlereagh police station. He was released without charge – enough to raise suspicions in the IRA.
His brother Séamus spent years finding out the truth about his brother’s death which was the subject of an extensive report by Operation Kenova.
He has written a book about his own experiences as an IRA Volunteer and his brother’s’ life and death.
[ No Greater Love The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney, 2021]
3. The FRU Moves In.
In 1979 officers David Moyles, Gordon Kerr and George Williams were serving in the British Army Intelligence Corps in Germany. They were later promoted respectively to Major, Brigadier and Lt Colonel during operations in Northern Ireland. As John Wilsey pointed out, service in Northern Ireland and particularly the Intelligence Corps could be a fast track to promotion.
After the Narrow water massacre of British Army soldiers and officers as they headed in convoy towards Warrenpoint and, on the same afternoon in August, 1979, the bombing of Lord Mountbatten and members of his family, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher believed that a radical new intelligence approach was needed in the war against the IRA.
After Warrenpoint the Army tried to persuade Thatcher that they should have primacy over intelligence matters, an argument they lost. In 1980 the Walker Report gave the RUC Special Branch control of intelligence.
Instead Thatcher appointed the former Head of MI6 Maurice Oldfield as Coordinator of Intelligence to the bitter resentment of MI5. Oldfields strategies resulted in a paramilitarisation of parts of the RUC. Meanwhile Army Intelligence formulated a policy of infiltration based on the Kitsonian doctrine.
By the late ‘70s the Berlin intelligence contingent moved to Northern Ireland. Initially David Moyles worked as intelligence collator in HQNI Intelligence Section (121 Intelligence Section) which handled the product of Scappaticci and other agents.
4. Passing on information.
“On nearly every occasion, prior to the killings and murder attempts, intelligence was passed from the FRU officers to the Joint Irish Section Headquarters in Northern Ireland and then distributed to the Joint Intelligence Committee. On no occasion were instructions received by the FRU in Belfast telling them to halt the sectarian targeting and killings.” [From ‘Ten-Thirty Three by Nicholas Davies’, 1999]
January 1981 the Force Research Unit was ‘stood up’. A highly secret Army Intelligence Unit was now operating alongside MI5 and the Special Branch in Northern Ireland.
In 1982 Scappaticci and Jones joined the FRU. Scappaticci was now eased out of his relationship with Jones to be handled by David Moyles from Lisburn Army HQ..
Jones was promoted to Warrant Officer to become Det Commander in Bessbroke in South Armagh.
Scappaticci was now living between Dundalk and Belfast. Garda intelligence noted that he was attempting to take over an ASU in Dundalk and also described him as North South Coordinator.
Dundalk/Newry IRA units were targeted for infiltration. In 1981 the IRA ISU had interrogated and murdered Eugene Simons from Castlewellan, Co Down. He was secretly buried.
In 1982 Peter Keeley, who had been recruited in Berlin as a Corporal in the Irish Rangers, was formally tasked in the UK to return to his hometown of Newry, Co Down and slowly work his way into IRA circles. He was inducted by the late Lt Col George Williams who later died in the Chinook crash in 1994. Keeley would later join the ISU and participate in interrogations in Cooley safe houses. Keeley’s FRU handlers were based in Bessbrook barracks, Co Armagh.
See ‘A Walk on the Dark Side‘ A Walk on the Dark Side. [WebBook.]
Scappaticci was handled by Moyles from Lisburn Army HQ with one break when Moyles returned to the UK for a period in 1987. His remit, he said, extended to wherever his agent was operating.
Scappaticci, whether he knew it or not, was now Agent ‘Steaknife’ (Moyles’ spelling in statements) or ‘Stakeknife’ as per Operation Kenova.
Scappaticci’s own “voice” was heard during a surreptitiously recorded conversation in 1993 with the producers and researcher of the television Programme ‘The Cook Report’ during which he described the interrogation of Frank Hegarty in 1986. Scappaticci said as follows:
“Hegarty came back because he was given assurances that he would be safe. You think life is sweet when those assurances come from the top man – Martin McGuinness. He gave his word of honour. McGuinness told Frank and his family he would be taken over the border to meet three prominent people in the IRA Army Council. McGuinness was part of the Army Council who first interrogated Hegarty, court-martialled him and then ordered him to be shot. Inside the IRA it was known from the moment those guns were found that Frankie was ‘going for his tea’. That was it. He was a dead man. It’s not important who pulled the trigger.
“McGuinness wouldn’t dirty his hands with that. Hegarty was court-martialled because he was an IRA volunteer. He threw himself on the mercy of the Army Council. They went into another room, said, ‘No – take him out and give him it.’ A real kangaroo court. They would have blindfolded him and assured him they were taking him home, then would have taken him from the car and told him to keep walking … a bullet in the back of the head. Four bullets is normal, usually by two people so that they are both implicated in the murder.”
The three prominent people named by Scappaticci were Tom ‘Slab’ Murphy, Chief of Staff Kevin McKenna, and Martin McGuinness.
McKenna had been furious when he learned McGuinness had readmitted Frank Hegarty into the IRA after an earlier dismissal for unreliability.
Operation Kenova has found that Scappaticci was not one of two men who fired the fatal shots that killed Frank Hegarty.
According to reliable sources, the fatal shots were fired by two Derry volunteers under the orders of Martin McGuinness.
5. Endgame.
By the late 1980s the ‘Hall of Mirrors’ that was Belfast saw Special Branch informers being murdered by Army Intelligence agents and MI5 manoeuvring to take over intelligence functions from RUC Special Branch.
Special Branch informer Joe Fenton was shot by Scappaticci before he could be interrogated by Brendan Hughes. After that Hughes, a hardened IRA volunteer, feared for his own life.
Scappaticci’s final act in the ISU was the interrogation of Special Branch agent Sandy Lynch in 1990. This was an almost comical situation where three or possibly four agents and informers interrogated a Special Branch agent. It would be days before his Special Branch handlers finally got the call to rescue him from the IRA torture house in Carrigart Avenue.
It appears Lynch had been warned by his handlers he was to be interrogated and coached in his lines. Scappaticcis fingerprints were found on batteries in a debugging device and he went on the run South of the Border. It was Scappaticci’s last role as ‘Stakeknife’.
In August 1989 journalist Martin O’Hagan was kidnapped in Louth by the same South Armagh unit that had shot Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan. His phone number had been found in Harry Breen’s notebook which the IRA had taken from Breen’s briefcase after he was shot in March 1989. After a frightening interrogation by Scappaticci and others, O’Hagan was released.
Scappaticci therefore knew the background to the ambush and who was involved in Breen’s death as no doubt did his handlers and MI5.
6. Enter Stevens.
In 1989 John Stevens began investigations into collusion between the Security Forces and the UDA in the murders of Loughlin Maginn and Pat Finucane in February and August in 1989. The UDA had identified Maginn as a target using leaked RUC material. Finucane had his own information card in the files of Brian Nelson, the UDA Intelligence officer and a FRU agent.
Colonel ’J’ aka Brigadier Kerr the FRU Commanding Officer was transferred out of Northern Ireland in 1990. He later became Military Attaché in Beijing.
Brian Nelson was arrested by the Stevens Inquiry team, charged and sentenced to ten years in prison in 1992.
Nelson’s FRU handlers were absolved when it was judged that Nelson did not inform his handlers of all his actions.
During 1990/1991 FRU was quietly stood down to be replaced in 1992 by the Joint Services Group under the command of Lt Col George Williams.
Stevens, though he had become aware of Scappaticci as a senior spy in the IRA, concentrated his investigations in Brian Nelson and the UDA.
According to the former GOC the late John Wilsey, FRU ultimately answered to MI5 and as GOC he said he only had the responsibility for “feeding them, administering them and and promoting them”. FRU’s successor organisation, the Joint Services Group, was only incorporated into the Army Intelligence Corps line of command in 1992.
Scappaticci was still regarded as a valuable asset. He met John Wilsey and Colin Parr, the Head of Army Intelligence in Belfast in 1993 to reassure him as Stevens was showing dangerous signs of wanting to investigate the alleged IRA informer.
It was 2003 before Scappaticci was unmasked. John Wilsey blamed Jon Stevens for blowing Scappaticci’s cover.
In 2003 Scappaticci and his solicitor began a series of denials, culminating in the Smithwick Tribunal where he was awarded legal costs of €385,000 euro to deny he was an agent called Stakeknife or Steaknife. Scappaticci’s first contact with the Tribunal was in 2006. His first legal bill came in 2007.
In April 2012 Moyles, then a retired Major, gave evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin. His appearance is probably the only time a former handler in FRU has discussed a long running agent.
7. Major Moyles/Witness 82.
Retired Major David Moyles served five tours of duty in Northern Ireland. One as intelligence collator in HQ NI Intelligence Section (121 Intelligence Section) and four tours in various roles with the Force Research Unit. He completed two tours as handler of an agent he would only call ‘Steaknife’ as he said he was precluded by law from naming the agent.
In a statement to the Smithwick Tribunal, Moyles described the process of disseminating ‘Steaknifes’ debriefs to RUC Special Branch.
MI5 were often directly tasking FRU agents.
Moyles’ primary motivation in giving evidence was to respond to allegations about Garda Collusion and Steaknife made by Ian Hurst a former Sergeant in the Fermanagh detachment of FRU until 1990, and Peter Keeley an agent and CHIS for FRU, MI5 and police.
Hurst and Keeley met in Dublin in 1999 along with journalist Liam Clarke. Tom ‘Slab’ Murphy had taken a defamation case against the Sunday Times. The new editor Andrew Neil was determined to fight it in court.
Hurst and Keeley were part of a group of whistleblowers about British Army activities in Northern Ireland. Their unchallenged assertions inspired stories in the British and Northern Ireland papers Guardian.
Hurst claimed to have unveiled Scappaticci as Stakeknife in 2003. He co-wrote the book ‘Stakeknife’ with Greg Harkin. Jon Stevens had become aware FRU had been running an important agent in the IRA in 1993. Scappaticci met the GOC John Wilsey and the Head of Army Intelligence, Colin Parr, for reassurance. As stated earlier, Stevens had been burrowing for information about him.
According to sources familiar with Keeley and Hurst at the time, they were both determined to get Scappaticci in front of the Smithwick Tribunal and had meetings in Dublin in 2006 with Chairman Judge Peter Smithwick, to that effect. Sources allege that both Hurst and Keeley were essentially coaching witnesses before talking to Smithwick.
Keeley had himself been coached by Willie Frazer to make allegations against Owen Corrigan which he admitted were entirely fictitious. Keeley resiled from allegations about Corrigan in relation to the Breen and Buchanan murders by the time in finished giving evidence to the Tribunal in December, 2011.
See ‘A Walk on the Dark Side‘ A Walk on the Dark Side. [WebBook.]
And ‘Killusion’ in coverthistory.ie Killusion.
Scappaticci was given legal representation to deny Hurst and Keeley’s evidence. He did not appear at the Tribunal.
See ‘Scappaticci’s Dublin Pay Day’ @coverthistory.ie Scappaticci:
Hurst gave evidence on the 17th and 18th of April 2012 and used Moyles and Keeley as sources for some of his assertions.
Two days after Hurst’s evidence retired Major David Moyles arrived at the Dublin Tribunal to rebut the extraordinary allegations Hurst made about Scappaticci and Owen Corrigan.
Moyles denied he had ever seen any intelligence documents relating to alleged “rogue elements” in the Irish Army or RUC.
He said he had never seen documents relating to collusion and the late Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan.
He had never seen any documents or MISRs or RUC SB50s about Corrigan leaking information.
He said he could not have had conversations as described by Hurst relating to alleged collusion by Corrigan or other Garda as he had no such information.
He emphatically denied Steaknife was the handler of Owen Corrigan.
He said had never seen intelligence relating to Stakeknife and Corrigan.
Allegations that Scappaticci had a role in the murder of Louth farmer Tom Oliver in 1990 made in Hurst’s book ‘Stakenife’, and by Keeley in his evidence. have been refuted by Operation Kenova.
According to Moyles the elaborate operation to ambush Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan in March 1989 could not have been mounted at short notice and took elaborate planning and was “ meticulously planned and executed”.
Moyles:
“Intelligence that I obtained, or saw during my tours of duty indicated that South Armagh PIRA was an extremely capable and secure unit. It based its security on recruiting only very trusted individuals from the immediate area and community who were from families who knew and trusted each other. Members of PIRA from other areas were viewed with intense suspicion and measures to prevent leakage of information were vigorously enforced. This included PIRA members belonging to Dundalk/Newry PIRA. Suggestions that South Armagh PIRA was heavily penetrated or riddled with informants are in my view preposterous”.
The Evidence of Witness 82 to the Smithwick Tribunal 20 April 2012 can be read and or downloaded via the link below:
