The ‘golden egg’ spy who became the IRA’s biggest traitor: Feared ‘nutting squad’ executioner ‘Stakeknife’ lived double life as British Army’s top secret agent for 22 blood-stained years- before fleeing to suburban Surrey when his epic betrayal was exposed

As the person on the coronary heart of the IRA’s ‘nutting squad’, he didn’t suppose twice about placing a bullet behind the heads of suspected traitors.

However Freddie Scappaticci – a lot to the fury of the boys who would go to any lengths to safe the top of British rule in Northern Eire – was the most important traitor of all to the militant Republican trigger. 

As a result of he was additionally Stakeknife, the highest spy for the British Military who knowledgeable on his terrorist comrades for 22 years  – while being allowed to proceed his murderous IRA function.

Scappaticci, who was outed in 2003 and died final yr in his 70s, is linked to the kidnap, homicide and torture of as many as 50 individuals.

After he was unmasked, Scappaticci lived below state safety with a brand new id in Guildford, Surrey, the place he was often known as Frank to neighbours. 

A BBC Information digital camera crew approached him shortly earlier than he left his house in West Belfast, however have been informed to ‘get yourselves off’. He added that in the event that they did not go away, he would ‘do’ them. 

At present, the long-awaited report into Stakeknife’s actions was printed.

The £40million investigation, often known as Operation Kenova, has additionally regarded on the function performed by the Military and MI5, Britain’s home intelligence company. 

The ‘nutting squad’ specialised in interrogating anybody suspected of aiding the safety companies throughout the Troubles. 

Scappaticci, whose ancestors had emigrated from Italy to work in Northern Eire’s mills within the nineteenth century, was described by one of the crucial senior British officers who served within the Province as ‘the jewel within the crown… the golden egg’.

‘Scap’, as he was recognized to many, specialised in extracting admissions of guilt by IRA operatives utilizing excessive violence.

These confessions have been typically taped after which the recordings have been performed to relations to persuade them that their beloved one had been ‘responsible’.

All of this performed out amidst a battle that lasted from 1969 till 1997.  

Through the trial of Sinn Fein’s former publicity director Danny Morrison in 1991, Scappaticci’s ruthlessness was revealed in horrifying element.

Belfast Crown Courtroom heard how police informer Alexander Lynch was interrogated by two IRA groups.

Scappaticci pictured on the 1987 funeral of IRA man Larry Marley

Because the IRA’s brutal enforcer, Scappaticci had the facility of life and loss of life over fellow paramilitaries accused of being informers. Pictured: Scappaticci in 1974

Scappaticci, who died final April in his 70s, denied being Stakeknife however it’s now typically accepted that he was 

The Each day Mail’s experiences on Stakeknife when he was unmasked in 2003

He testified {that a} man referred to as Scappaticci had warned him that if he didn’t admit to being an informer he would ‘weake up in South Armagh and he’d have the ability to speak to me the best way he wished, hung the other way up in a cattle shed.’

He added that Scappaticci mentioned it did not matter about me screaming as a result of nobody would have the ability to hear’.

Lynch admitted all the pieces to his captors and solely survived to recount his ordeal as a result of the Military and police burst into the constructing.

The nutting squad is understood to have been answerable for greater than 40 killings, together with numerous abductions, beatings and torture classes.

Victims had cigarettes stubbed out on their our bodies, branded with sizzling pokers and had the soles of their ft crushed.

Even when they confessed, their lives have been typically nonetheless snuffed out. The trademark killing methodology was a single gunshot to the again of the top.

Scappaticci and his males would then go away the physique the place it may very well be discovered, so it could act as a warning to others suspected of treachery.

The killing chief was recruited to behave as a spy within the early Nineteen Seventies. It was seen on the time as a superb coup within the struggle to beat the IRA’s actions.

Scappaticci is believed to have lived for a while close to Worplesdon Street in Guildford, Surrey

It was later claimed that he was ‘turned’ by an undercover British soldier after he was imprisoned following the introduction of internment with out trial by UK authorities in 1971.

He agreed to betray his comrades’ trigger after being subjected to an IRA punishment beating.

Within the years that he secretly labored for Britain, he’s mentioned to have earned at the very least £1million. 

He penetrated the IRA’s command construction and relayed invaluable info to his handlers. 

Consequently, intelligence chiefs had recordsdata on all the IRA’s main protagonists.

He’s believed to have had shut connections with each Gerry Adams, who was then the chief of Sinn Fein, in addition to the late Martin McGuinness, the then Provisional IRA commander.

His info is claimed to have led to the Loss of life on the Rock killings of three IRA members by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988.

His nuggets of intelligence have been handed to the Military’s secretive Pressure Analysis Unit. 

Nevertheless, allegations of state collusion with Loyalist loss of life squads emerged. 

Police have examined claims that harmless Roman Catholics might have been killed to stop Scappaticci’s actual id from being revealed.

The alleged actions of Stakeknife are below investigation in Operation Kenova led by former Bedfordshire chief constable, Jon Boutcher (pictured). In a press release on Tuesday, Mr Boutcher mentioned his staff have been made conscious final week of the passing of Scappaticci

Questions have additionally been requested about how Scappaticci was allowed to commit severe crimes to make sure that he maintained his fearsome fame amongst Republicans.

Households of those that have been kidnapped and killed by the nutting squad declare that his British handlers might have saved their family members however didn’t intervene.

Loyalist paramilitaries had deliberate to execute Scappaticci in October 1987. However the FRU was alerted and is claimed to have as an alternative engineered another goal. 

The British gave the identify of an harmless Roman Catholic, retired taxi driver Francisco Notarantonio, claiming he was an IRA operative.

The Loyalists believed the lie and murdered him in entrance of his grandchildren.

When his cowl was blown in 2003, Scappaticci – who constantly denied he was a spy – fled Belfast within the information that the IRA wished to kill him. 

He gave a now-infamous press convention the place he insisted that he wasn’t Stakeknife.

‘My assertion principally is that I’m Freddie Scappaticci. I’m sitting right here immediately with my solicitor. I’m telling you I’m not responsible of any of those allegations,’ he mentioned.  

Operation Kenova has been led by Jon Boutcher, who’s now the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Eire (PSNI).

His investigation took seven years to look at Stakeknife’s actions.