The Rest Is Classified
151. Britain’s Man Inside the IRA: From Spy to Executioner (Ep 3)
26 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the role of Freddy Scappaticci within the IRA?
For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. How do you protect an undercover agent inside a group like the IRA? And how do you decide who lives and who dies? Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified. I'm David McCloskey.
And I'm Gordon Carrera. And we are looking at Freddy Scappaticci, the agent known as Stakeknife, who has been recruited by British Army Intelligence, run by a group called the Force Research Unit. He's the number two in the IRA's Internal Security Unit, the counterintelligence team. that are interrogating suspected traitors. They decide who lives and who dies inside the IRA during the Troubles.
But we left off last time, Gordon, I think with this massive question, which really I think it's the heart of this series, this examination of Stakenife and his role in this intelligence war during the Troubles of How do you run a really, really valuable agent who's also doing absolutely despicable things?
And in this case, interrogating, torturing, and in some cases, murdering citizens of the United Kingdom. And so we have this kind of question, I think, at the heart of things. And steak knife, when we left off last time, is being run by the army in the middle of the troubles.
Chapter 2: How do British intelligence agencies protect undercover agents?
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Chapter 3: What moral dilemmas arise from running an agent like Stakeknife?
I mean, it does involve huge, both moral and practical complexities, which we're going to dive into in this episode particularly. First of all, I mean, we should establish what this internal security unit or the nutting squad, which we should remind people who don't know that nut is the term for people's head and they used to shoot people in the head.
So hence they got this term of nutting people and called the nutting squad. That was their job. Scappaticci, early 80s, is number two in it. It's worth just establishing just what it got up to, because here from the Canova report is the official verdict.
Members of the ISU, the Internal Security Unit, were responsible for torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and murder, including of children, vulnerable adults, those with learning difficulties, and those who were entirely innocent of the claims made against them.
Confessions to being agents, whether in audio recordings or in writing, were obtained through violence or deception and by making false promises to victims.
So you get a sense there, and they talk about the activity, including physical beatings with iron bars, hammers, also shooting of some victims in their legs, elbows, knees, or feet when they're involved in lower-level crime or antisocial behaviour, as opposed to the execution you get if you're an informer for the British.
And of course, the complexity of this, as we established last time, is that the British state knows these things are going on from their agent inside, Scappaticci's state knife, and the state knife is actually carrying out these acts. And they sometimes know when someone is under suspicion. So they know in advance when these things happen.
Because we saw last time, Scappaticci is in pretty regular contact with his handlers, isn't he? He's meeting them and on the phone to them quite a lot.
All the time.
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Chapter 4: What actions did the IRA's Internal Security Unit take during the Troubles?
I mean, it's near constant communication. The handlers know exactly what's going on.
Yeah. And I think what's also even more complicated is when you're getting into these situations where Scappaticci is interrogating people, sometimes the people really are informers for the British state. And sometimes they're not. Some of those alleged to be agents working for the British state are actually being accused of that because of internal factional disputes within the IRA.
I mean, what better thing to do than accuse someone else of being an informer? Or you get a clash over criminal activity, which the IRA is also involved in.
And, you know, in some occasions it's even said that you get someone accused of being an informer because one person is trying to eliminate someone else because of having an affair with that person's wife and because of extramarital relationships. So you've got a kind of really complicated situation here about the people who are being interrogated by Scappaticci for different things.
I think here there's really three things that are happening. The first one is that there are murders that are committed by agents of the state. So there are cases here where one agent murders another agent, right? And also rolled up into this are that agents do things that sort of go beyond or directly contradict the orders given to them by their handlers.
There's also the murder of alleged agents.
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Chapter 5: How does the British government respond to Stakeknife's actions?
including some of the victims weren't agents at all, but there's nothing done to stop them. And then there are cases where actually the violence, the murder could have been prevented. So the British Army, the FRU, the Force Research Unit, may have actually had forewarning.
They may have had intelligence that someone was going to be killed, but they didn't act on that to prevent the murder for fear of exposing Scappaticci, Stakenife, or another agent inside the IRA.
Yeah. And I mean, you get to this really kind of complicated question. If you're the British, the intelligence running him, what if he is going to murder someone who is one of your agents? Is that okay? Because you're trying to protect Scappaticci, and if you don't let him do it, it might expose him. The truth is no low-level agent is going to be as valuable as Scappaticci.
So do you sacrifice someone who is really one of your agents? in order to preserve Scappaticci in place? Because there's certainly a hierarchy. They've got lots of informers, the British, from low-level drivers up through to people in senior positions in the IRA who are strategic assets.
Chapter 6: What happens to informers within the IRA?
Do you let someone who is effectively
innocent of being one of your informers but who therefore is an IRA person be killed are you happy about that is that okay so you kind of encourage that because in your view they are an IRA member I mean you just start thinking don't you David about the kind of complexities of this and you have this additional issue that you mentioned which is that steak knife isn't always under your control it's not like you'll always do what you want him to do or you're always able to tell him what to do
I was trying to think of what a direct comparison might be in the U.S. today. And the closest I could get would be if the FBI, most likely be the FBI, were running a source who's an American citizen, like a confidential informant, inside a drug cartel or inside an organized crime syndicate. And as part of their job, they had to commit violent crime against other American citizens.
And in this case, the direct parallel would be if the FBI had forewarning of this in some cases where you have an American citizen who is going to kill other American citizens and the security service law enforcement actually knows in advance that this is going to happen and decides in some cases not to intervene because of the value that the source is providing or may provide in the future.
Would that happen?
You could make the case that it kind of happened like in the Whitey Bulger case at the FBI where his handlers did know in some cases it seems that he was committing murder. And allowed it to happen. I think the difference is that in that case, those handlers were effectively corrupted by Whitey Bulger. And eventually the end, spoiler alert, there won't be a lot of accountability happening.
on the part of the British state for what happens with steak knife.
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Chapter 7: How do personal relationships complicate espionage operations?
Whereas in the Whitey Bulger case, he goes to prison and his handlers do as well. So there are some key differences. But it was interesting because I put the question to a couple – FBI special agents of, you know, would there be an incident where... Because you can get waivers for your confidential informants committing crimes. Like, that's a thing you can get.
You can get that at the CIA if you're running an asset inside a terrorist organization and they're providing material support to that organization. Like, there are ways to get things wavered in extenuating circumstances.
Yeah.
But it was interesting, like, you know, this direct question of would the FBI allow a confidential informant to commit murder? I couldn't, I honestly couldn't get a clear answer. Now, small sample size, I think it'd be an absolutely extreme case. And there is a process, which is different from the snake knife one, but that's kind of the, that'd be the American frame for this today.
Yeah. And I guess the context is worth saying. I mean, we're in what people would see different ways of seeing it, civil war, insurgency, counter-terrorism operation going on within the country, as opposed to just normal criminality, if you like, even if you want to call drugs a mafia, normal criminality.
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Chapter 8: What are the consequences of Stakeknife's actions for his future?
But there is a different context there, which I think To some extent explains it. But let's drill down a little bit more into some of the cases because I think you really only understand it when you get to some of the cases. And we'll get to some specific name cases in a bit.
But the Canova Inquiry, which is the official inquiry interstate knife, does actually give some accounts of cases which are useful because even though they're anonymised, they've been investigated by the authorities. So we can be pretty confident about them because there are other cases where It's a bit more murky what Stakenife's role was.
But in one case, internal security unit of the IRA starts an investigation after suspicions raise that someone was an alleged agent for the RUC, the police special branch. Stakenife is fully involved in the investigation and informs his through handlers that the victim had been abducted and taken to the Republic of Ireland for interrogation.
He, Stakenife, would be involved in the interrogation and would have access to a firearm and highly likely the victim would be shot if found guilty. The victim's ordeal during interrogation is set out in detail in the through records of Stakenife's debriefings. Stakenife played a central role in securing an alleged confession from the victim and was involved in his court martial.
The handlers were aware that consideration was being given to the murder of the victim During the interrogation, Special Branch was supplied with information to the victim's whereabouts and who was involved.
The FRU was aware of the escalating threat to the victim and the RUC Special Branch failed to pass on information to the Irish police so they could attempt a rescue, apparently in the mistaken belief that the victim would not be shot, he was. So that gives you a sense of the kind of narrative.
But I think what's useful about that is you get a sense that the through are being told about it as it's underway and the decisions are being made about whether to pass it or not. And just one more point on that, which I think is interesting. is that what it means is that after the murder takes place, the special branch of the RUC know who was involved in the abduction, interrogation and murder.
And what they don't do is pass it on to their fellow police officers from the criminal investigations department who are investigating the murder. So this is one of the problems of the case. You have one bit of the RUC who are investigating a murder because it's a criminal act, but another part, the special branch,
who are not telling them that they actually know who was involved in the murder and who did it, meaning the crime is going to go unsolved and unpunished. Because obviously they are prioritising protecting the agent rather than investigating the crime.
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