An upcoming investigation into the actions of the British army’s premier IRA operative during the Troubles is expected on Friday to conclude that multiple lives could have been saved with timely interventions. The Operation Kenova inquiry team relayed to at least one family this week that the killing of their relative could have been averted had the State forces responded to intelligence.
The independent report concerning Stakeknife, a senior double agent, which cost £40 million (€47 million), had been commissioned eight years before and its preliminary conclusions are to be released on Friday morning at a Belfast hotel. Although Freddie Scappaticci, a senior Belfast IRA member implicated in 18 murders and identified as Stakeknife, will not be directly named in the report, owing to the UK government’s “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) protocol on sensitive intelligence matters.
Scappaticci, a former bricklayer from Belfast, was deemed a high-value asset by British military intelligence during the 30-year conflict in the North. He consistently rebuffed the accusation of being a traitor until his death last year.
It was revealed on Thursday evening that the families of murder victims who collaborated with the Kenova team will not be informed if their loved ones did indeed act as informants for the security services, a claim which led to them being targeted, due to the enduring NCND policy.
Kevin Winters from KRW, a solicitor in Belfast who represents numerous families, stated his clients were “greatly annoyed” by this development.
“The report will likely maintain the NCND status quo on whether the deceased was an informant or ‘tout’ which is causing significant distress and is arguably more upsetting than Freddie Scappaticci’s anonymity,” he said.
“One family I spoke to recently engaged with Kenova principally to elucidate this particular issue – they sought to know whether their family member was an informant or not.”
Mr. Winters indicated he intends to push for a lifting of this policy.
Adding if the report can demonstrate that a majority of the deaths scrutinised could have been avoided, it can be considered a “successful report”.
Recent decades have uncovered instances where some of those “executed” by the IRA’s internal security unit (ISU) or the so-called nutting squad, led by Scappaticci, were not in fact informants.
Shauna Moreland, who was just 10 when the IRA abducted and subsequently murdered her mother, Caroline, two weeks before the 1994 ceasefire, has lauded the Operation Kenova investigators for putting victims first. Caroline, 34 at the time of her death, suffered a 15-day hold-up by the IRA before being shot dead and dumped near Roslea, Co Fermanagh. She left behind three kids.
Shauna remarked that their family has been let down by the system since 1994, and it was only when their cases were moved outside Northern Ireland that they began to have faith in the process. Operation Kenova, according to Shauna, treated them with nothing but respect and honoured what her mother rightfully deserved. She extended her gratitude to Jon Boutcher, the former head of Operation Kenova and his team, acknowledging they showed her mother was more than just a statistic.
The probe’s scope also includes the role of Stakeknife’s British army handlers – MI5, and the former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) – in relation to the abduction, torture and murder of some victims. However, the decision was announced by North’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) last week, stating that no one would face charges in connection with offences referred to by Operation Kenova due to a lack of substantial evidence.
Iain Livingstone, who now supervises Operation Kenova, reassured that the victims remain their main concern. His team has been meeting with families throughout the week and individual reports relating to their loved ones will be made available within the upcoming months.
Mr Boutcher, who led the Kenova investigation for seven years and is now the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), is expected to be present this Friday.