Overview
- Investigators say the high‑grade agent known as Stakeknife was shielded by handlers, richly rewarded and directly linked to 14 murders and 15 kidnappings.
- Kenova reports MI5 drip‑fed and reclassified material and only late in the process disclosed a cache of files, a “significant failure” that eroded confidence.
- Bound by the NCND policy, the report did not name Stakeknife as Freddie Scappaticci, yet it set out case‑numbered tables covering 28 killings and abductions after MI5 sought to curb such disclosure.
- The inquiry examined 101 IRA murders and abductions, no charges followed from 38 prosecution files, and the army’s FRU previously extracted and later relocated Scappaticci to England.
- The report also recorded ‘deplorable collusion’ by some RUC and UDR members with a Mid‑Ulster UVF gang in the 1970s, while finding no evidence of high‑level state collusion or of British involvement in the Dublin‑Monaghan bombings.