Kevin Fulton

Last updated

Peter Keeley, who uses the pseudonym Kevin Fulton, is a British agent from Newry, Northern Ireland, who allegedly spied on the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) for MI5. He is believed to be in London, where he is suing the Crown, claiming his military handlers cut off their connections and financial aid to him. In 2004, he reportedly sued the Andersonstown News , an Irish republican news outlet in Belfast, for revealing his identity as well as publishing his photograph. The result of that suit has not been made public.

Contents

Background

Fulton's real name is purportedly Peter Keeley, a Catholic from Newry, who joined the Royal Irish Rangers at the age of 18. He was selected and trained by the Intelligence Corps and returned to civilian life to infiltrate the IRA. He reportedly gave evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal, in which he reasserted his claim that Garda Owen Corrigan was a double agent for the IRA. [1]

Undercover activity

In Unsung Hero, Fulton claims he worked undercover as a British Army agent within the IRA. He was believed to have operated predominantly inside the IRA's South Down Brigade, as well as concentrating on the heavy IRA activity in South Armagh. [2] Fulton and four members of his IRA unit in Newry reportedly pioneered the use of flash guns to detonate bombs. [3]

In one incident, Fulton was questioned on responsibility for designing firing mechanisms used in a horizontal mortar attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) armoured patrol car on Merchants Quay, Newry, County Down, on 27 March 1992. Colleen McMurray, a constable (aged 34) died and another constable was seriously injured. [4] Fulton claims he tipped off his MI5 handler that an attack was likely. [3]

Arrest

On 5 November 2006, he was released without charge after being arrested in London, and transferred to Belfast to be questioned about his knowledge or involvement in the deaths of Irish People's Liberation Organisation member Eoin Morley (aged 23), Royal Ulster Constabulary officer Colleen McMurray (34), and Ranger Cyril Smith (aged 21). "I personally did not kill people", he stated. His lawyers asked the British Ministry of Defence to provide him and his family with new identities, relocation and immediate implementation of the complete financial package, including his army pension and other discharge benefits, which he had been reportedly promised by the MoD for his covert tour of duty. His ex-wife, Margaret Keeley, filed a lawsuit in early 2014 for full access to documents relating to her ex-husband. She claims to have been wrongfully arrested and falsely imprisoned during a three-day period in 1994 following a purported attempt by the IRA to assassinate a senior detective in East Belfast. [5] [6]

On 26 November 2013, it was reported that The Irish News had won a legal battle after a judge ruled against Keeley's lawsuit against the newspaper for breach of privacy and copyright, by publishing his photograph, which thereby also, he argued, endangered his life. Belfast District Judge Isobel Brownlie stated at least twice that she was not impressed with Keeley's evidence and described him as "disingenuous". Under British law, Keeley will also be billed for the newspaper's legal costs. [7]

On 31 January 2014, the Belfast High Court ruled that Fulton had to pay damages to Eilish Morley, the mother of IPLO member Eoin Morley, shot dead at age 23 by the IRA. [8] The order was issued based upon his failure to appear in court. The scale of the pay-out for which he is liable was to be assessed at a later stage but was never published. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MI5</span> British domestic intelligence agency

MI5, officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Defence Intelligence (DI). MI5 is directed by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the service is bound by the Security Service Act 1989. The service is directed to protect British parliamentary democracy and economic interests and to counter terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom (UK).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omagh bombing</span> 1998 car bombing in Northern Ireland by the Real IRA

The Omagh bombing was a car bombing on 15 August 1998 in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. The bombing killed 29 people and injured about 220 others, making it the deadliest incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Telephoned warnings which did not specify the location had been sent almost forty minutes beforehand, and police inadvertently moved people toward the bomb.

"Stakeknife" was the code name of a high-level spy who successfully infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) while working for the Force Research Unit (FRU), a British military intelligence unit. Stakeknife allegedly worked as an FRU informant for 25 years.

The Force Research Unit (FRU) was a covert military intelligence unit of the British Army's Intelligence Corps. It was established in 1982 during the Troubles to obtain intelligence from terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland by recruiting and running agents and informants. From 1987 to 1991, it was commanded by Gordon Kerr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conor Murphy</span> Northern Irish politician (born 1963)

Conor Terence Murphy is an Irish republican Sinn Féin politician, who has served as Minister for the Economy of Northern Ireland since 2024. He has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Newry and Armagh since 2015, having previously served as the Member of Parliament for Newry and Armagh from 2005 to 2015, observing the Sinn Fein policy of abstentionism.

Freddie Scappaticci was an Irish IRA member named in the Kenova report as a British Intelligence mole with the codename "Stakeknife".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Donaldson</span> Irish republican (1950–2006)

Denis Martin Donaldson was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a member of Sinn Féin who was killed following his exposure in December 2005 as an informer in the employ of MI5 and the Special Branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It was initially believed that the Provisional IRA were responsible for his killing although the Real IRA claimed responsibility for his murder almost three years later. His friendship with French writer and journalist Sorj Chalandon inspired two novels: My Traitor and Return to Killybegs.

Stormontgate is the name given to the controversy surrounding an alleged Provisional Irish Republican Army spy ring and intelligence-gathering operation based in Stormont, the parliament building of Northern Ireland. The term was coined in October 2002 after the arrest of Sinn Féin's Northern Ireland Assembly group administrator Denis Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciarán Kearney, and former porter William Mackessy for intelligence-gathering on 4 October 2002.

Direct Action Against Drugs was a vigilante group in Northern Ireland that claimed responsibility for the killing of a number of alleged drug dealers. The organisation was allegedly a front name used by the Provisional IRA in claiming responsibility for the killings. It was made up of IRA active members exclusively.

William Frederick Frazer was a Northern Irish Ulster loyalist activist and advocate for those affected by Irish republican violence in Northern Ireland. He was the founder and leader of the pressure group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR). He was also a leader of the Love Ulster campaign and then, the Belfast City Hall flag protests. In 2019, from evidence gained in a police report, journalist Mandy McAuley asserted that the Ulster Defence Association had been supplied weapons, in the late 1980s, by the Ulster Resistance and that Frazer was the point of contact for those supplies. She asserted that multiple sources also confirmed this to be true. Those weapons were linked to at least 70 paramilitary murders.

Eamon Collins was a Provisional Irish Republican Army member in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He turned his back on the organisation in the late 1980s, and later co-authored a book called Killing Rage detailing his experiences within it. In January 1999 he was waylaid on a public road and murdered near his home in Newry in Northern Ireland.

The Smithwick Tribunal was an Irish Tribunal of Inquiry into the events surrounding the killing of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The men were killed in a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush near the Irish border at Jonesborough on 20 March 1989 as they returned in an unmarked car from a cross-border security conference in Dundalk with senior Garda officers. The tribunal issued its report on 3 December 2013, finding there had been collusion between members of the Gardaí and the IRA, which resulted in the deaths of Breen and Buchanan. The tribunal took its name from the chairman of the Tribunal, Judge Peter Smithwick.

Martin McGartland is a former British informer who infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1989 to pass information to RUC Special Branch.

Raymond Gilmour was an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who worked clandestinely from 1977 to 1982 for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) within those paramilitary organisations. His testimony was a main element of the supergrass policy, which was aimed at convicting large numbers of paramilitaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Nelson (Northern Irish loyalist)</span> Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary member (1949 – 2003)

Brian Nelson was an Ulster loyalist paramilitary member during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. He was an intelligence chief of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and also a clandestine agent for the British Army's Force Research Unit during the conflict.

This is a timeline of actions by the Irish republican paramilitary groups referred to as the Real Irish Republican Army and New Irish Republican Army. The Real IRA was formed in 1997 by disaffected members of the Provisional IRA. Since July 2012, when Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican groups merged with it, the group has been called the New IRA; although it continues to call itself simply "the Irish Republican Army".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dissident Irish republican campaign</span> 1998–present insurgency in Northern Ireland by republicans opposed to the Good Friday Agreement

The dissident Irish republican campaign began at the end of the Troubles, a 30-year political conflict in Northern Ireland. Since the Provisional Irish Republican Army called a ceasefire and ended its campaign in 1997, breakaway groups opposed to the ceasefire and to the peace agreements have continued a low-level armed campaign against the security forces in Northern Ireland. The main paramilitaries involved are the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and formerly Óglaigh na hÉireann. They have targeted the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the British Army in gun and bomb attacks as well as with mortars and rockets. They have also carried out bombings that are meant to cause disruption. However, their campaign has not been as intensive as the Provisional IRA's, and political support for groups such as the Real IRA is "tending towards zero".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1989 Jonesborough ambush</span> Provisional IRA attack on RUC officers during the Troubles

The Jonesborough ambush took place on 20 March 1989 near the Irish border outside the village of Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, were shot dead in an ambush by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. Breen and Buchanan were returning from an informal cross-border security conference in Dundalk with senior Garda officers when Buchanan's car, a red Vauxhall Cavalier, was flagged down and fired upon by six IRA gunmen, who the policemen had taken for British soldiers. Buchanan was killed outright whilst Breen, suffering gunshot wounds, was forced to lie on the ground and shot in the back of the head after he had left the car waving a white handkerchief. They were the highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saoradh</span> Irish political party

Saoradh is a far-left political party and pressure group formed by dissident Irish republicans in 2016. It is active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland and independent commentators describe the party as being close with the New IRA, although Saoradh themselves deny this.

This is a timeline of actions by the Official Irish Republican Army, an Irish republican & Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. Most of these actions took place as part of a Guerrilla campaign against the British Army & Royal Ulster Constabulary and internal Irish Republican feuds with the Provisional IRA & Irish National Liberation Army from the early 1970s - to the mid-1970s during the most violent phase of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland.

References

  1. ↑ Keeley and Smithwick Tribunal, Bbc.com; accessed 5 May 2014.
  2. ↑ "Former spy released without charge". Rte.ie. 6 November 2006. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  3. 1 2 Fulton, Kevin, Jim Nally, and Ian Gallagher. Unsung Hero, John Blake Publishing Ltd., London (2006); ISBN   978-1-84454-034-1, pp. 146-47.
  4. ↑ BBC's Hard Talk interview, 4 October 2006.
  5. ↑ Erwin, Alan (15 February 2014). "Informer's ex-wife Margaret Keeley to battle MoD legal move". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  6. ↑ "Stakeknife damaged my life - MI5 agent's ex-wife". Bbc.co.uk. 23 March 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  7. ↑ Suzanne McGonagle, "Irish News wins legal battle regarding spy's photo", Scribd.com; accessed 4 May 2014.
  8. ↑ Melaugh, Dr Martin. "CAIN: Issues: Victims of the Northern Ireland Conflict". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  9. ↑ "British agent in IRA must pay damage to victim's family, says court order", Belfast Telegraph , 31 January 2014; accessed 4 May 2014.

November 2021

November 2021

November 2022

March 2022

August 2023

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.