Suppressed MI5 files have revealed that the intelligence agency instructed notorious British agent Freddie Scappaticci via his military handlers.
In 2003 west Belfast man Scappaticci, a former commander of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit, was identified as Stakeknife.
Also known as the “Nutting Squad”, the ISU was responsible for hunting down and killing informers.
Scappaticci, who worked for the British army’s intelligence gathering Force Research Unit, died of natural causes last year.
In March this year Operation Kenova published a detailed interim report into his activities.
However, it later emerged that hundreds of pages of information were not handed over to the investigation, which began in 2016, and examined more than 100 murders and abductions.
A full and final report is expected to be made public next year.
In total Operation Kenova submitted 28 prosecution reports relating to 35 individuals, to the Public Prosecution Service, but no action was taken in any.
Operation Kenova head Sir Iain Livingstone, who replaced PSNI chief Constable Jon Boutcher last year, raised concerns about the document discoveries in a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Benn earlier this year adding the the “initial assessment is that the files contain significant new material which appears to point to new investigative leads not previously known”.
It has now been reported that an MI5 officer is suspected of supressing hundreds of files linked to Stakeknife.
While six tranches of documents were initially found in April, more papers linked to the agent have been discovered in recent weeks.
Significantly, the recently found documents reveal that that MI5 instructed Stakeknife via his British army handlers.
It has also been reported that the agency provided cash to pay Scappaticci a figure reported to be up to £80,000 a year.
In August the Irish News reported that MI5 was aware that Stakeknife had been recruited around 20 years before a former head of the spy agency claimed it was told.
Ex-MI5 Director General Eliza Manningham-Buller said her organisation only became aware of the agent’s status after it was asked to resettle him, which is thought to have been around 2003.
Senior intelligence officials, including five former directors-general, testified to Kenova that the service had no role in handling Stakeknife.
Earlier this year the British government, through the Home Office, said the recently disclosed files were discovered during “the process of digitising wider historical records”.
It is understood a review has now been ordered into the failure by MI5 to hand over the discovered documents to Operation Kenova.
The review, which is due to star next month, is to be led by a former senior police officer with experience in the intelligence world.
Former Police Ombudsman, Baroness O’Loan, who was also a member of the Operation Kenova steering group said the recent disclosures were “very concerning”.
“There must be a question over whether there was any criminality — was this a deliberate act which has had the effect of perverting the course of justice as a consequence of the withholding of evidence?” she told the Times.
A former British army intelligence officer who had contact with Scappaticci accused MI5 of misleading Operation Kenova
“They were always involved in the background, they set tasks and the intelligence went directly to them,” they said.
“Where do you think the money came from”
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