British security services allowed a top spy in the IRA to continue committing serious crimes, police report finds.
Published On 9 Dec 2025
The United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 protected an IRA double agent who committed murders during Northern Ireland’s Troubles and later avoided prosecution, a major investigation has found.
The findings are from Operation Kenova, a nearly decade-long police probe into “Stakeknife” – the codename for a senior IRA figure who also worked as an informant for British security services.
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He operated during The Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland between Irish republicans seeking a united Ireland and British forces and unionist paramilitaries who wanted to remain in the UK.
About 3,500 people were killed in the violence before it ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Stakeknife led the IRA’s internal security unit, which abducted, interrogated and killed people suspected of informing – while secretly passing intelligence to the British.
Investigators said MI5 allowed the agent to continue committing serious crimes, blaming a “perverse sense of loyalty” that meant he was never held to account.
The report said MI5 even twice removed the agent from Northern Ireland on “holidays” despite knowing he was wanted by police for conspiracy to murder and false imprisonment.
Stakeknife has never been formally identified, but he is widely believed to have been Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci.
He has been linked to 14 murders and 15 abductions. Scappaticci died in 2023. He admitted being in the IRA but denied working for British intelligence.
Operation Kenova also criticised MI5 for delaying the release of key documents, saying several incidents could be seen as attempts to “restrict the investigation, run down the clock, avoid any prosecutions … and conceal the truth”.
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum apologised for the late disclosure and offered sympathies to victims and their families.
The report said there is a “compelling ethical case” to publicly name Stakeknife and called on the UK government to apologise to bereaved families and survivors.
The 40-million-pound ($53m) investigation examined 101 murders and abductions linked to the unit.
It identified more than 3,500 intelligence reports from Stakeknife that were not acted on. Investigators said this was evidence that lives “could and should have been saved”.
