'UK government must stick to neither-confirm-nor-deny over Stakeknife - or it could be seen by America as soft': former counter-terror officer
A former member of RUC Special Branch has said the government must not officially name Stakeknife as Freddie Scappaticci because of the precedent it would set.
William Matchett said that whilst “it's not as if it's a great mystery who the person is,” formally confirming his identity could mark the UK as “soft” in the eyes of America, at a time of increasing global threats.
Mr Matchett also mounted a defence of intelligence-gathering in general, noting that even after almost a decade of work, Operation Kenova – which published its final report this week – has been unable to find enough evidence to prosecute any former security forces personnel involved in the Stakeknife affair.
The final Kenova report, released on Tuesday, reinforced the findings of last year's interim report: namely, that the IRA mole known as Stakeknife was protected at the expense of his victims.
Stakeknife was the head of the IRA's internal security unit, tasked with killing people who talked to the authorities.
Kenova's investigators found Stakeknife had divulged a “vast” amount of material; they uncovered “3,517 intelligence reports from Stakeknife, including 377 in an 18-month period”.
Nonetheless, it estimated that Stakeknife was tied to about 14 murders, and it is “probable” that he cost more lives than were saved through the intelligence he was providing.
Though he was mainly an Army agent, RUC Special Branch and MI5 were both aware of Stakeknife and received intelligence stemming from him.
In the wake of Kenova's final report, PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has said it is “bordering on farce” for the UK government to still stick to its ‘neither-confirm-nor-deny’ policy over finally confirming that Stakeknife was Scappaticci (a Belfast man who died in 2023).
So far, the government has refused to name him.
“I think they set a dangerous precedent if they come out and say 'we will breach [the policy of] neither-confirm-nor-deny',” said Mr Matchett, a former detective inspector, who was in the police for around 30 years.
“Because you'll find then that somewhere down the line there's somebody else saying 'but this is an exceptional circumstance too'.
“And because you've done it here, you'll do it there.
“There's a big threat from Putin, a big threat from China. The world is more dangerous than ever.
“The likes of Donald Trump in America are looking at western Europe as being soft, and it can't keep secrets.
“All of a sudden it'll be something like, this is a litmus test to go: 'Sure, how can anybody trust talking to you guys when, in 40 or 50 years a bit of political pressure comes on and you just divulge it'?”
When it comes to those who managed informers within the paramilitaries' ranks, Mr Matchett said: “These were really good people, and rugged.
“When the wheel was coming off society, they were the ones that kept it on… It's not a Bond villain stroking a white pussycat. It's just not.”
Mr Matchett said that the PIRA, in the mid 1970s, had introduced ‘general order number one’ which prescribed death as the punishment for "treachery" (informing).
This had been “a back-handed compliment” to the security forces, because it acknowledged “the greatest threat to armed struggle is actually people inside it who are talking to the police; it wasn't rule number 15 or rule 101 – it was general order number one”.
He stressed that the IRA were the ones who set up Stakeknife's internal security unit to begin with, adding: “The military, God love them, they've gone in there and they're trying their best to work against this monster, but that's a tough one for them.
“You know, it wasn't a general who made up 'general order number one'.”