Archive for the ‘Freddie Scappaticci’ Category
A tribute to the outstanding journalist Ed Moloney, who passed away in New York Aged 77
Ed was a great friend and will be missed.
Condolences to Joan McKiernan, and all friends, colleagues, and comrades.
A reminder : Ed Moloney’s work on issues concerning child abuse in the six-county bit of Ireland which remain unsolved :
John Meehan October 20 2025
Gerry Adams Wins Libel Case Versus the BBC concerning the 2006 killing of IRA informer Denis Donaldson – Dublin Jury Awards €100,000
This is a result which does not surprise close observers of the proceedings.
A very strong argument was advanced by Tom Hogan, counsel for Gerry Adams.
Source :
Tom Hogan, Counsel for Gerry Adams in BBC/Denis Donaldson libel case, puts forward extremely strong argument
The BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary failed to convince the jury about the quality of her 6 anonymous sources.
Any reasonable juror was bound to say to themselves : “It is irrelevant that Adams was, or was not, in the IRA. This claim is not proven – we are asked to take one person’s word for it, and that is not good enough”.
In short, the BBC case was extremely flimsy as it relied on anonymous British intelligence sources.
In this respect, see Anton McCabe’s incisive article below –
Adamned if he does, adamned if he doesn’t
Gerry Adams didn’t order spy’s murder, and ‘Spotlight’’s agent didn’t even say he did
British intelligence sources are serial liars – and the background news is :
The British Northern Ireland Secretary of State Hilary Benn is scrambling to prevent a public enquiry into
the Sean Brown 1997 murder involving 25 – yes 25! – people connected to British intelligence.
Tánaiste Simon Harris has come out firmly with the Brown family, the GAA, thousands of Derry demonstrators, the Irish News etc – against the British state’s cover-up protecting MI5 murderers.
We are well used to British government cover-ups in Ireland. We are even more used to Dublin governments bowing, scraping, and capitulating to Westminster diktats.
So, it is notable that the Dublin government has grasped the Sean Brown cover-up must end.
John Meehan May 30 2025
After the libel trial result was made public, Gerry Adams called on the Dublin government to meet the family of Denis Donaldson. Jane Donaldson, the daughter of the killed IRA informer, issued a public statement which has the ring of truth.
The British State and the 6 County Bit of Ireland – Hilary Benn’s Three Cover-Ups Are Protecting State Killers
Hilary Benn is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is very busy, scrambling to protect state killers.
Appalling vistas have come to the surface.
Three major scandals will not go away, public pressure is building up.
Number 1, The murder of Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Chairperson Sean Brown in 1997
The Sean Brown case is extraordinary – Hillary Benn is covering up the involvement of 25 people connected to British intelligence in a case that dates back to 1997. Let that sink in.
Campaigners for Sean Brown are very clear on what they want. We are well used to British government cover-ups in Ireland, and are even more used to Dublin governments bowing, scraping, and capitulating to Westminster diktats.
So, it is notable that Simon Harris – Dublin government Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) has grasped this cover-up must end. This news report is very telling :
Read the rest of this entry »How Much Proof Is Needed? The Case of Vladimir Putin’s Spy Pavel Rubtsov / Pablo Gonzalez
Speculating about the identity of spies is a largely useless activity unless the secret operator has been unmasked. For example in Ireland, examining the profiles of a few high-profile unmaksed British spies – Freddie Scappaticci, Seán O’Callaghan and Denis Donaldson – the vast majority of the people who came across these informers never guessed anything was wrong until the unmasking.
Pavel Rubtsov/Pablo Gonzalez is an unmasked Russian spy. We do not yet know how much damage he did, how many lives he betrayed, how many people lost their lives, how many lives were ruined, because of the services he offered to Putin’s far-right racist régime.
An important sub-plot in this story concerns members of the international anti-Ukrainian left – including the former Irish members of the European Parliament Clare Daly and Mick Wallace – who associated themselves with campaigns for the release of Rubtsov/Gonzalez after he was detained by Polish state security forces who believed (correctly, it transpires) that their prisoner was a Putin spy.
After Rubtsov returned to Russia as part of a prisoner-exchange he was personally greeted by President Vladimir Putin. The case against the Russian spy had become overwhelming, but ex Irish MEP Clare Daly still peddled a false cover-story :
Read the rest of this entry »Background to current Donaldson investigation: Terrible track record of 6 County British state institutions dealing with politically sensitive criminal cases
All need to show unconditional solidarity with the two women who came forward in the rape case which led to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigning from the leadership of the Democratic Unionist party in the six-county bit of Ireland.
In the Easter Sunday 2024 edition of the Belfast Sunday Life tabloid Lady Eleanor Donaldson is named as the co-defendant in the Jeffrey Donaldson MP rape case. Jeffrey and Eleanor are a married couple.
Two women came forward to the state authorities with allegations categorised as “historical”. In this context, what does the word “historical” mean, precisely? That is a very important question.
Read the rest of this entry »Freddie Scappaticci, a British Agent in the IRA, was publicly unmasked in 2003 – on March 8 2024 the British State publishes a cover-up report called Kenova – the authors refuse to name Scappaticci – and nobody will be prosecuted
Ed Moloney is the first journalist who publicly unmasked Freddie Scappaticci. A strange coalition issued denials : Scappaticci himself, the British Government, and Sinn Féin. Shortly afterwards extraordinary proof emerged, which proved beyond any shadow of doubt that Scappaticci was a British informer.
Questions remain – above all whether the state organisations and the then IRA leadership – responsible for many Scappaticci murders – can be made accountable for their actions. The British state is determined to prevent this happening.
On March 8 2024 a cover-up Kenova Report does not name Scappaticci. In the same week we learned that an innocent civilian called Seán Brown, an active GAA member, was killed in 1997 by loyalists, with help from 25 members of the British state security forces. An inquest into the assassination of Seán Brown was stopped because the British State, covering up its dirty work, issued Public Interest Immunity Certificates.
presiding coroner Mr Justice Kinney abandoned the long-running inquest in Belfast and confirmed he would write to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris to ask for a public inquiry.
He said Mr Brown’s inquest could not continue due to material being withheld by state agencies on the grounds of national security.
The PSNI and MI5 have made applications for multiple redactions to sensitive documents connected to the murder under Public Interest Immunity (PII).
https://tomasoflatharta.com/2024/03/05/surveillance-operation-on-lvf-suspect-mark-swinger-fulton-lifted-the-day-before-sean-brown-murder-irish-news-report-lifts-lid-on-a-1997-sectarian-murder-facilitated-by-the-bri/
The stories below are recommended.
Stakeknife ‘told TV crew that McGuinness ordered killings’
Army mole in IRA allegedly told reporters they had not revealed enough about Sinn Fein leader
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Monday July 14, 2003
Guardian
The Army/IRA double agent Freddie “Stakeknife” Scappaticci told television documentary makers Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was a ruthless terrorist leader who sanctioned murder, secret tapes have allegedly revealed.
Mr Scappaticci was exposed two months ago as military intelligence’s top spy within the Provisionals, for whom he was deputy head of the notorious internal security unit, the Nutting Squad, responsible for torturing and killing suspected informers.
So far, Mr Scappaticci, whom the government paid more than £80,000 a year and whom sources have linked to more than 40 murders, has brazened it out, denying everything and returning to his west Belfast home after his security force handlers failed to persuade him to flee the country for his own safety.
Although many IRA members believe he is Stakeknife, the republican leadership has stuck by him, albeit at a distance, perhaps reckoning that the secret services would capitalise further on any IRA attempt to harm or exile him.
Read the rest of this entry »The Man Who Blew the Whistle on the late British IRA Spy Freddie Scappaticci
Ed Moloney has diligently reported on the Steaknife (Freddie Scappaticci) story for many years. Skeletons are falling out of cupboards : Link : http://thebrokenelbow.com/2023/04/11/the-man-who-blew-the-whistle-on-scap/
His name is Ian Hurst although for a long time this former intelligence officer in the British Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU) called himself ‘Martin Ingram’ whenever he met the media. A chirpy Mancunian who served with the FRU in Derry, he broke with the military and gradually emerged in public with secrets to tell, angered by what he believed was the shameful way an agent he ran in the IRA had been treated.
The Derry IRA’s quarter master’s department included in its ranks one Frank Hegarty, whose career in the IRA had been controversial. He had been expelled some years before by Ivor Bell, then the chief of staff, when it was discovered that he had been having an affair with the wife of a soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and had failed to tell his superiors. And so it was that eyebrows were raised when the news filtered through that Hegarty was back, a move that had been arranged by Martin McGuinness.
Ian Hurst, pictured in his days as a soldier in the Force Research Unit
Hegarty’s exposure as a spy and death at the hands of the Internal Security Department – the IRA’s spycatchers – led to more internal speculation about McGuinness’ true loyalties. The Belfast-based veteran IRA leader, Brian Keenan was one who did not keep those doubts to himself. The pair had never got on and Keenan blamed McGuinness for facilitating his arrest in Northern Ireland and subsequent deportation to a London court where he received a lengthy sentence for IRA bombings in England in the early 1970’s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 