William Matchett: Contrary to Kenova, Provisional IRA was guilty of war crimes, not the Army, RUC or MI5

This leadership oversaw a deeply anti-British insurgency.

General Order No 1 was designed to instil fear both within the PIRA/PSF structure and the wider community.

Ordinary people lived in terror that innocent actions or words might be misinterpreted, leading to fatal consequences.

Unlike the TV show, The Traitors, where contestants are simply voted off, here the penalty was death, with no return.

The victim’s family also suffered trauma and social ostracism.

To formalise the hunt for informers the Internal Security Unit (ISU) was established.

Of at least 83 victims, including women and children, most were civilians, and many were not informers at all.

Operation Kenova investigated allegations of serious crimes by the controversial source known as Stakeknife – believed to be Freddie Scappaticci, who died in 2023 – within the ISU.

The investigation also examined his military handlers, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch, MI5, and the Prosecution Service.

Suspected informers were often tortured and deceived with false promises of safety if they read the prepared script, only to be shot in the head at close range afterwards.

Sometimes, their bodies were left on landmines.

Confessions were played at press conferences where Provisional Sinn Fein spokesmen blamed and smeared British intelligence, largely Special Branch, even though the Provisional IRA was responsible.

Provo propaganda newspapers echoed the lies and slander.

Kenova missed the chance to question those who had issued these deceits.

Operation Kenova – 50 detectives, 17 advisors, nine years, costing some £50 million – followed the pattern of historical investigations.

It resulted in a publication rather than prosecutions and ultimately concluded that Stakeknife did “more harm than good”, identifying flaws in his handling.

However, the portrayal could mislead people into thinking this was typical of all such cases, which is not accurate.

For example, in 1975 the Belfast PIRA believed they were infiltrated.

This led to a ceasefire and ‘disappearing’ alleged informer Eamon Molloy.

How many lives did that truce save?

Another example.

Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald praised the lives saved by Sean O’Callaghan, a Provisional IRA chief who became an informer to stop the organisation’s murder campaign.

Kenova linked Stakeknife to 14 killings in the 1980s – a fraction of ‘informer’ deaths.

The highest number of such in a single year was seven (when Stakeknife was in prison in 1974); the lowest was zero (when he was in the ISU in 1983).

The Kingsmill inquest linked a rifle used in the 1976 massacre to ‘informer’ killings in the 1980s, indicating a second ISU within South Armagh/North Louth PIRA, possibly even deadlier.

These facts raise the prospect that Stakeknife’s presence was positive in saving lives and highlight important details omitted from the Kenova publication.

Kenova claimed that a Stakeknife-type scenario would not exist today.

While this might be true in a benign setting like the TV crime drama Hope Street, the reality in a near-civil war situation is very different.

In deadly chaos, even with the best efforts, knowing a murder is planned is not always enough to stop it.

‘Human rights’ groups, focused on criticising former security forces, failed to highlight the gross abuse of international humanitarian law involved in prisoner executions.

This view contributed to the narrative where the actions of the Provisional leadership were not scrutinised.

In legacy, the BBC rely heavily on such groups for commentary.

MI5 did not bend to popular pressure to break its usual secrecy to confirm that Scappaticci was Stakeknife, illustrating why national security matters in a democracy are handled by the central authorities, rather than local police or justice officials.

General Order No 1 is a vital document. Its absence in the Kenova publication is startling.

Contrary to the impression given by Kenova and the associated media coverage, it was the Provisional IRA who created and ruthlessly enforced a law that constituted a war crime – not the Army, RUC or MI5.

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l William Matchett is author of Secret Victory: The Intelligence War That Beat The IRA