Freddie Scappaticci^[1] (12 January 1946^[2] – April 2023) was an Irish IRA member named in the Kenova report, as a British Intelligence mole with the codename ‘Stakeknife’.^[3]

It has been suggested that Stakeknife be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2024.

Scappaticci was a member of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit. In 2003, it was reported that Scappaticci had been working for British intelligence, their highest-ranking agent in the IRA, and was known by the codename "Stakeknife". Both the IRA and Scappaticci himself publicly denied involvement with British intelligence.

Scappaticci was born 12 January 1946 to Mary Murray and Danny Scappaticci and grew up in the Markets area of Belfast, his father was an Italian immigrant to the city in the 1920s.^[1] The Irish Times^[2] have said his birth name was Frederico, but he has said that "Freddie" was the name on his birth certificate.^[1][4] He took up work as a bricklayer.^[5]

Scappaticci was fined for riotous assembly in 1970 after being caught up in the Troubles and, a year later, was interned without trial in Long Kesh at the age of 25 as part of Operation Demetrius.^[5] Among those interned with him were figures later to become prominent in the republican movement, such as Ivor Bell, Gerry Adams, and Alex Maskey. He was a low-level member of the Provisional IRA in the 1970s.^[5] On his release, he found work on a building site where he was later questioned by the police over a tax scam he was accused of participating in.^[6]

Scappaticci married Sheila Cunningham, and they had six children.^[4]

By 1980, Scappaticci was a lead member in the Internal Security Unit (ISU) for the IRA Northern Command.^[7] The ISU was a unit tasked with counter-intelligence and the investigation of leaks within the IRA and the exposure of moles or informers, known as "touts". Via the ISU, Scappaticci played a key role in investigating suspected informers, conducting inquiries into operations suspected of being compromised, debriefing of IRA volunteers released from Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army questioning, and vetting of potential IRA recruits.

The ISU has also been referred to as the "Nutting Squad", in reference to the fact that many of the informers uncovered were shot in the back of the head - the nut.^[8] 18 killings as a result of ISU activities have been directly attributed to Scappaticci,^[9] including the murders of two senior policemen^[10] and a suspected informer named Joe Fenton.^[8]

After the original allegations broke in 2003, Scappaticci, by now living in the Riverdale area of West Belfast, claimed his involvement with the IRA ended in 1990 due to his wife's illness. He denied that he had ever been linked to any facet of the British intelligence services, including the Force Research Unit.^[11] He then left Northern Ireland and began living under witness protection.^[4] He is known to have lived in Cheshire, Manchester, where his brother had settled, and later moved to a gated community in London, where he appeared and had been discharged by Westminster Court for alleged sex offences. He briefly returned to Belfast in 2017, to attend his 99 year-old father's funeral.^[12][6] He lived apart from his wife from 2004, she had remained in Belfast, though they occasionally holidayed together and were said to have kept in contact until her death in 2019.^[12][13] Around this time, he was said to be living in a detached house in Guildford and driving a Mercedes car.^{[citation needed]}

Scappaticci's first involvement with British intelligence is alleged to have been in 1978, two years before the Force Research Unit (FRU) was formed in 1980, the role of the unit was to centralise Army Intelligence under the Intelligence Corps. He was said to have worked as an agent for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch, he had been interviewed by RUC fraud squad, in connection with a construction industry tax scam. Fearful of returning to prison, he offered to become a low level informer.^[6][14]

The former FRU agent turned whistleblower using the pseudonym "Martin Ingram" has said in his 2004 book Stakeknife that Scappaticci eventually developed into valuable Agent 6126^[6] handled by British Army Intelligence via the FRU. Ingram says that Scappaticci's activities as a high-grade intelligence source came to his attention in 1982, after Scappaticci was detained for a drunk driving offence.^[15][16] Ingram paints Scappaticci at this time as "the crown jewels", the best agent handled by the FRU, and the asset was said to have been paid £80,000 a year.^[16] He cites a number of allegations against Scappaticci. His accusations centre on various individuals who died as a result of the activities of the ISU between 1980 and 1990. Ingram also alleges that Scappaticci disclosed information to British intelligence on IRA operations during the time period, involving:

• IRA members involved in the kidnapping of wealthy Irish supermarket magnate Ben Dunne in 1981. Ingram alleges that Scappaticci was influential in identifying his kidnappers to the authorities.^[17]
• the attempted kidnapping of Galen Weston, a Canadian born business tycoon in 1983. Weston kept a manor outside Dublin where the kidnapping was to take place.^[18]
• the kidnapping of supermarket boss Don Tidey from his home in Rathfarnham in Dublin. Ingram alleges that Scappaticci tipped off the FRU on the details of the kidnapping which eventually resulted in the killings of a trainee Garda Síochána (Gary Sheehan) and an Irish Army soldier (Private Patrick Kelly).^[19]

Aside from providing intelligence to the FRU, Scappaticci is alleged to have worked closely with his FRU handlers throughout the 1980s and 1990s to protect and promote his position within the IRA. The controversy that has arisen centers on Ingram's allegation that the FRU killed individuals who might have exposed Scappaticci as an informer.^[20]

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 organization. The first interview took place on 26 August 1993 in the car park of 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 online as the 2003 allegations against Scappaticci surfaced.^[21]

Scappaticci appeared to give intimate details of the modus operandi of the IRA's Northern Command, indicated some of his previous involvement in the organisation and alleged, among 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 reportedly been involved in the interrogation and execution of Hegarty regarding a large Libyan arms cache, which the Gardaí found. Martin Ingram stated that Hegarty was a FRU agent whom other FRU members had encouraged to rise through the organisation and gain the confidence of key IRA members.^[22]

Things deteriorated for Scappaticci when Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner, who was investigating collusion between British security forces and loyalist paramilitaries in the killing of Protestant student Brian Adam Lambert in 1987 and the killing of solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989, revealed that he knew of his existence. In April 2004, Stevens signaled that he intended to question Scappaticci as part of the third Stevens inquiry.^[23]

A report in a February 2007 edition of the Belfast News Letter reported that a cassette recording allegedly of Scappaticci talking about the number of murders he was involved in via the "Nutting Squad", as well as his work as an Army agent, had been lodged with the PSNI in 2004 and subsequently passed to the Stevens Inquiry in 2005.^[24] It is unclear whether this audio is a recording made via the Cook Report investigation. There were several inconsistencies with the various media reports alleging that Scappaticci was Stakeknife. The Provisional IRA reportedly assured Scappaticci of their belief in his denials and has issued public statements suggesting that the announcement of the former as a "tout" was a stunt by the British government to undermine Sinn Féin and republican movement in Northern Ireland.^[25]

In January 2018, Scappaticci was arrested by police regarding offenses including murder and abduction, but was released on bail. On 5 December 2018, the Westminster Magistrates' Court sentenced Scappaticci to 3 months imprisonment, suspended for 1 year, after he pleaded guilty to possessing "extreme pornographic images", including those which featured animals. The pornographic materials were uncovered during an investigation into serious crimes committed during the Troubles.^[26]

On 11 April 2023, it was announced that Scappaticci had died the previous week at age 77. The Guardian reported that his health had deteriorated due to a series of strokes.^[12] Because he was still living under witness protection, little information about his death was publicly revealed, and it was only announced after his burial had taken place.^[4][9][27]

• Murder of Thomas Oliver