Steak / Stake Knife

dathi1

Were you supprised it was him?
must admit..i was.

Éomer of Rohan

What is this about again?

Biffa Bacon

An IRA informer. Apparently he was the IRA's chief torturer.

therecklessone

Who spilled the beans?

The ST had a piece on their front page, but didn't say who published his name.

Anybody got a link to it, I've been a bit out of touch the last few days.

Ta.

Clintons Cat

I think it is most likely his identity came to light after the Castlereigh break in last summer.In that raid a number of doccuments relating to informers and their handlers were stolen.

Did it suprise me that it was someone so high up?not really.Spies traditionally are recruited from the highest echelon of an organisation.His role in Interegating suspects would have been most useful in deflecting suspicion.

davelerave

british military intelligence is supposed to have carried out the castlereagh raid to remove files relating to him and protect his identity,

davelerave

the press had his name for a while anyway it eventually gets published

mike65

While this is tricky for the British its plain embarassing for the Provos, it makes you wonder who in the upper tier of SF knew/knows this chap and if they were compromised by him without even knowing it...expect alot of shifty eye movement at the next Ard-Chomhairle...

Mike.

Victor

How interesting that the revelations are happening now with the current impasse in the North.

Jake303

Originally posted by Clintons Cat
I think it is most likely his identity came to light after the Castlereigh break in last summer.In that raid a number of doccuments relating to informers and their handlers were stolen.

As has been pointed out, its generally believed that the RUC special branch carried out that raid!
Maybe someone should point this out to David Trimble
:rolleyes:

Jake303

Originally posted by mike65
While this is tricky for the British its plain embarassing for the Provos,
Mike.

Could end up being more than just tricky for the British if the whole truth about their dirty war in the six counties is ever revealed, I reckon all told they were probably guilty of organising more civilian deaths over the thirty years than the provos!

Remember wev only heard about Stake Knife, the Finucan scandal and Bloody Sunday yet!
This covers only a small portion of the six counties and over a limited time frame.

growler

may not even be all that tricky for the british, most of the then ministers from the 70's and 80's will be out of politics now, there seems to be an unwritten agreement not to ever pursue former politicians for such things that fall under the umbrella of "security". there is no doubt that the FRU and some of the special branch were as bad as the IRA during the 80's.
It is a lot worse for the families of steaknife's victims who's deaths must seem even more pointless and preventable after these revelations. But hardest hit will be the ira and sinn fein, both from the sheer shock but also internal trust must be strained after hearing this news.

btw ,if this had come out as a result of the castlereagh break in at the hands of republicans , then he wouldn't be alive today, that break in is looking more like a special branch cover-up , shock!

dathi1

there is no doubt that the FRU and some of the special branch were as bad as the IRA during the 80's.

When it comes to murder and mayhem MI5 amd MI6 are masters of the game..even more so than the paramilitaries. For instance they were the authors of the largest atrocities carried out on this island in 1974 with the Dublin + Monaghan bombings. All along MI5 + Co played this war to suit their own budgets and special interests. That's why they're doing there best to subvert the GF agreement.

Clintons Cat

I didnt say the republicans were to behind for castlereigh break in,only that the identities of informants were compromised.

Personally my opinion it was leaked by the British to deflect attention away from the continuing allegations of coousion between special branch and loyallist paramilitaries.

Sparks

Personally my opinion it was leaked by the British to deflect attention away from the continuing allegations of coousion between special branch and loyallist paramilitaries.

Hmmm. Given that he was due to be interviewed by the stephens enquiry in the near future, I suspect it was leaked to avoid embarressing testimony myself.

Éomer of Rohan

Listening to David Dunseath on BBC Radio Ulster today and it seems the man denies it was him - I cannot remember his name; sounded Italian though - he lives at the address which was given to the press and all but when the Sunday People interviewed him, he denied he'd ever worked for Special Branch or the intelligence services! What is worse, Special Branch said he was in protective custody on Friday and then again on Saturday when plainly he wasn't for he carried out several newspaper interviews. Today SB turned around and denied he was in protective custody; it appears as though they are trying to have this guy knocked off by the Provos. He hadn't left the country last time I looked but I'd say he'd better get out fast.

Hairy Homer

At the risk of sounding incredibly flippant, for those of us who remember the s******s from our near neighbours when one Tony Cascarino from St Paul's Cray in Kent declared to play football for the Republic, can you imagine the howls of derisive laughter if a Londoner called Alfredo Scappaticci did the same?

Aren't they glad that all Messrs Cascarino, Mancini, Aldridge et all wanted to do was play football.

davelerave

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
Listening to David Dunseath on BBC Radio Ulster today and it seems the man denies it was him - I cannot remember his name; sounded Italian though - he lives at the address which was given to the press and all but when the Sunday People interviewed him, he denied he'd ever worked for Special Branch or the intelligence services! What is worse, Special Branch said he was in protective custody on Friday and then again on Saturday when plainly he wasn't for he carried out several newspaper interviews. Today SB turned around and denied he was in protective custody; it appears as though they are trying to have this guy knocked off by the Provos. He hadn't left the country last time I looked but I'd say he'd better get out fast.

they probably want him knocked off ,ex spies are troublesome but they won't want the provos to get hold of him for interrogation

davelerave

he would know all the double agents in the provos i think

Victor

Originally posted by davelerave
he would know all the double agents in the provos i think

Actually no, they (the security forces) would keep as much information as possible from him, for fear of him stopping being a double agent and taking all their agents out.

davelerave

Originally posted by Victor
Actually no, they (the security forces) would keep as much information as possible from him, for fear of him stopping being a double agent and taking all their agents out.

i disagree over 30 yrs he would at least get to know who many of them were but they mighn't know him ,sure didn't another lower ranking agent threaten to expose him

cujimmy

Ok, so hang on the IRA have a spy as their head of internal security and his name is Alfredo. For fu*ks sake, am i the only one to learn from movies like the godfather.? Alfredo , give him a kiss and put him out fishing on lough foyle

davelerave

the uda have 'the egyptian' so i suppose the ira have 'the italian'

Clintons Cat

Yeah,i can see it now

Join the ParaMilitaries,An Equal Opportunities Employer.


>;)

Mighty_Mouse

Does anyone question the timing of this (as of yet unsubstantiated) revelation(*cough - smoke-screen)?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

spongebob

Originally posted by Mighty_Mouse
Does anyone question the timing of this (as of yet unsubstantiated) revelation(*cough - smoke-screen)?

The sunday papers were chock full of speculation......the IRA will be weakened immeasurably by the whole palaver.

'Sources ' were singing to journos like canaries. The timing is of it all is absolutely superb of course.

Whether the original outing of steakknife was real or not we will never know.

Victor

Originally posted by daveirl
Smoke Screen to what?

This might give an insight, but I suspect it may not be the only reason. Note the way this appears to be the IRA -v- Security Forces, with no one questioning government supervision of the Security Forces.

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/751634?view=Eircomnet

More spies may be unmasked
From:The Irish Independent
Sunday, 18th May, 2003

RENEGADE Army officers are threatening to name three more British spies at the heart of the IRA following the unmasking last week of Stakeknife, the top informer in the Republican movement.

Members of a shadowy army intelligence unit named Stakeknife last week as Alfredo Scappaticci, said to have been second-in-command of the IRA's feared internal security organisation. Mr Scappaticci denies that he was an informer or ever involved in terrorism. Now the identities of three more moles - one at a senior position within Sinn Fein and the IRA, the other two at a more lowly level - look set to be revealed.

Security officers in the North fear the identity of a double agent known as the "second Stakeknife" becoming known. The "second Stakeknife", who comes from north Belfast and has been a member of Sinn Fein and the IRA for more than 20 years, is said to supply "top-grade" intelligence from the IRA's highest levels.

Former Army officers who handled informers are now threatening to expose them because an official inquiry led by Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has concluded that they collaborated with loyalist terrorists to murder suspected IRA sympathisers.

One former member of the Force Research Unit (FRU), the Army intelligence group which was the main subject of the Stevens investigation, said: "A lot of people are very unhappy. If we are left to carry the can, we would have to examine our options."

spongebob

The Observer maintained that the source of the leaks on Steakknife etc etc was retired Special Branch officers...funny that!

Irrespective of the whether the man named was the agent steaknife the impression is abroad that he was only one of a number of senior IRA figures who were security assets.

The scale of the speculation in the past 2 weeks indicates that there is a grander agenda and an element of politics ....I suspect that consultancy jobs for retired officers are an integral part of that in order to bring them back under the offical secrets umbrella.

The fact that nonoperational sources from both the military and the ruc are singing indicates that there is a turf war going on ....by proxy maybe...using retired personnel.

Finally, the scale of the briefings and their timing indicates that the governments are fed up waiting for the ira to deliver and have decided to implode the ira in a cloud of suspicion and recriminations.....meaning that some sources have permission to talk to the media as long as they are selective and damn the official secrets act.

Do allow for the proliferation of agencies who may be briefing angainst each other as well as the ira. The agencies will include mi5, mi6, ruc(SB), uk military intel, garda(sb) dept of justice, ni office, possibly cabinet office in number 10 and thats just for starters.

Also allow for age profiles. An employee of one or the other of the above who started working at 20 years old in 1970 and was 44 at the time of the first ceasefire in 1994 would be 53 now.

Many of these guys feel that they gave the best years of their life to a specific cause and that they were scrapped by the politicos in the 1990's while still in their 40's with many productive years left (as they see it). They were also very well paid considering their education levels. There are very few jobs for retired sppoks save as 'consultant spooks' . Retired ira men have ni assembly jobs, what about those who fought on behalf of the state ?

M

Victor

Originally posted by Muck
Retired ira men have ni assembly jobs, what about those who fought on behalf of the state ?

All will have nice pensions and at least one is a Lord. Others could take over traffic duty in Dublin.

poneill

As Agent Smith said in The Matrix ( I )

"I feel infected!"