He killed – for the IRA – British Army informants while working for the British Army. He was an Irish Democratic Army enforcer and provided information to the British. His name was Stakeknife – a sharp knife – and he died a few days ago. If the identification of Steakknife with the 77-year-old Alfredo-Freddie-Scapatici is true, then, logically, it can become easier for many.

However, last week there was a coincidence – in quotes or out of quotes. According to the BBC, Kenova, led by John Butcher, has announced that the results of the Stakeknife investigation will not be made public anytime soon, as was planned from last October to early 2023.

Steakknife – if he really is Freddie Scapatici – died the same day. This was announced yesterday, shortly before the arrival in Ireland for a four-day visit by Joe Biden – the very … Irish president of the United States, as it was written.

From a builder… an IRA fighter

Alfredo Freddie Scapatici was born in 1946 in Belfast, the son of Italian immigrants. His father, Daniel, owned a fast food restaurant and sold ice cream in the city. According to the London Times, when he was 16 years old, Freddie was offered to play professionally at Nottingham Forest. He agreed, but could not bear to be away from Belfast for more than three weeks and returned. Eventually, he became a builder.

In the late 1960s, when riots broke out between Northern Ireland and England, Scapatici joined the IRA, starting from the bottom. However, in 1971, during a purge of the British army, he ended up in Long Kesh prison, where he met Gerry Adams, chairman of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA. They immediately became friends, and, according to The Guardian, Scapatici was also Adams’ personal bodyguard.

Stakeknife became a prominent member of the IRA’s Nutting Squad, named after her actions: shooting British informants in the back of the head. The paradox is that, according to information, the British army itself contributed to its “promotion” …

Characteristic, however, is an excerpt from a book by Eamon Collins, a resurrected IRA fighter who was killed in 1999, “Murderful Fury”. victims that they would be executed, he told a story: “He [ο Σκαπατίτσι] turned to [αρχηγό της Nutting Squad] and began to joke about the whistleblower who confessed after being offered an amnesty. “Scoop” told the man that he would take him home… “Scoop” told him to keep his eyes closed for safety as they walked away from the car. “It was funny,” he said, “that this bastard stumbled and fell, asking me, walking along the road with railings and walls: “Is this my house now?”, And I said: “No, I didn’t walk a little more …” “… and then you shot that bitch in the back of the head,” said John Joe, and they both burst out laughing.

“Everyone has a breaking point and in the end they think they are coming home. But that’s not the case,” Scapatici said, suspecting nothing, according to the Times.

Other… IRA services

According to British reports, in 1991 Scapatici was behind the murder of Thomas Oliver, a farmer who allegedly briefed Irish police on the IRA.

In 1992, he allegedly played a key role in the torture and murder of three other British Army FRU agents who recruited him, but did so under the guise of an IRA fighter.

“He started looking for revenge and completely immersed himself in the game,” a person who knew Scapatici well told The Guardian. “He’s an evil bastard addicted to adrenaline.”

Throughout the 1980s, Stakeknife had… a lot in common with the supposed traitors to the IRA, whether they were after all or not. The procedures were brief: at the slightest suspicion of a person suspected of treason, they were taken to bunkers, tortured, deprived of sleep, pelted with petrified hares, and finally killed, abandoned on deserted roads in the Irish countryside.

1978 that changed everything

However, 1978 appears to have been a turning point in his career. After a heated argument with an IRA member, since he was likely having an affair with his partner, he was tortured, which angered him and led to a risky decision: he found a British army camp, entered and asked to join it. their ranks.

Other information says that Scapatici offered his services to the British army because he was told that his debts to the tax office would be paid off. A third scenario was that he befriended a British Army officer with whom they had drinks in Belfast pubs.

However, the FRU, the army’s shadowy spy wing, couldn’t believe their luck, according to The Guardian. Thanks to the army’s connections to the Northern Ireland paramilitaries, he immediately arranged for Scapatici’s “promotion” to a senior position in the Nutting Squad, where he not only interrogated, tortured and killed suspected informants, but vetted hundreds of potential recruits to make a decision. if he were the right “material” for the IRA.

In fact, British services allegedly transferred to him, for at least two decades, a salary equal to that of a British minister, about £80,000 a year, into a Gibraltar bank account.

Regarding … his list of services to the British Army, he is said to have, among other things, passed on the information that prevented the IRA ambush against the British Army in Gibraltar in 1988 in which three IRA volunteers were killed. At the same time, he provided important information about IRA attacks on British military installations in Germany.

In 1990, he allegedly orchestrated the arrest of former Sinn Fein MP Danny Morrison.

Escape 2003

In 2003, when the media linked Scapatici to Stakeknife, revealing his dual role, he was forced to leave Belfast. He is said to have been offered protection by MI5, which he refused. However, in the same days, he demanded a meeting with the leadership of the IRA in order to convince them that all this was not true. In addition, he believed that his connections with the historical leadership of the Irish Democratic Army would let him down. His main argument: the British want to break up the movement.

According to The Times, Scapatici must have thought that the IRA leaders would not dare to kill him, not only because of his relationship with former Sinn Fein chairman Gerry Adams, but also because such an act on their part would undermine the claims of the two leaders. that they signed the Good Friday Agreement five years earlier from a position of strength, not weakness. Or, perhaps, because Scoop knew (literally and figuratively) where the bodies were buried and who buried them, and threatened to expose his unfortunate executioners if they killed him.

Other information, however, requires that he leave for Tenerife, as it was only in Spain that he could spend the tax-free money offered to him by the British government for years. An independent publication reported in 2006 that Belfast residents recognized him on holiday in Tenerife, forcing him to return to England.

According to other sources, the double agent took refuge in Manchester, a casino in Italy or in the Canary Islands.

From 2015 to 2018

The first announcement that Scapaticci would be investigated as… Stakeknife was made in 2015. At the time, the Northern Ireland police investigation included 24 murders, which later increased to 50. However, the case was transferred to Bedfordshire a year later. authorities where John Butcher served, who eventually supported Kenova’s argument. By then, things were getting pretty serious: the involvement of the British Army, MI5 and the RUC, Northern Ireland’s oldest police force, would be considered. Finally, Scapatici was arrested in early 2018.

According to an IRA source cited by the Guardian, when Belfast authorities said in 2018 that Stakeknife and then-arrested Freddie Scapatici were the same person, they said: “It was the fear and horror of the IRA: judge, jury and executioner. He didn’t have to attend brigade meetings. He was not involved in politics. But when something went wrong, they sent Freddie Scapatici.”

Other IRA sources, appalled by the revelations of a traitor among them, stated that “Scoop” had an intimidating reputation as a “ruthless psychopath”.

However, he himself gave an interview in 1993 in which he said that “for a long time I was at the center of events. I am no more. There is more to life than murder…

Stakeknife as a myth and an asset

Stakeknife – Scapaticci or not, he never admitted it himself – was labeled as the top spy for the IRA, and ultimately the British. His dual role, often cruel and inhuman, created a myth, a myth about those who would very much like to see him dead. In fact, British publications want Stakeknife to be multifaceted, “a mixture of different informants,” as the London Times wrote.

Indeed, in his two decades of work as a double agent, he participated in the firing squads of the Irish Democratic Army, which in every possible way “neutralized” those who were considered traitors, while the British army and MI-5, the British intelligence services, not only turned a blind eye, but – in order not to reveal the double agent, they blamed, according to the British media, innocent people.

According to the Guardian, in October 1987, members of the IRA shot and killed 66-year-old Francisco Notarantonio, a retired taxi driver, while he was sleeping with his wife at home in west Belfast. He had 11 children. He was killed, apparently in order not to reveal the real double agent.

“There were no rules in this dirty war. Notarantonio sacrificed himself to protect the most secret British agent in the IRA,” said a British military source.

Indeed, Army sources have repeatedly claimed that Stakeknife has saved lives and prevented IRA atrocities, and his legend has grown to the point where he is credited with participating in almost every major security operation of the last 25 years.

But John Butcher, head of Operation Kenova, which is investigating the Stakeknife case, admitted that “the government would be concerned” that his report could expose a link between the alleged IRA killer and his operators in the British Army. The investigation involved 50 inspectors and cost over £30 million.

Many doubt, writes the Times, that the whole truth will be revealed in one of the darkest episodes of the dirty war. The stakes are very high. Scapatici was allegedly involved in several murders, but the British state was almost certainly involved.