Operation Kenova

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Operation Kenova is an ongoing criminal investigation into whether the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland failed to investigate as many as 18 murders in order to protect a high level double agent codenamed Stakeknife who worked for the Force Research Unit, while at the same time he was deeply embedded and trusted within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). [1] The investigation started in 2017, headed up by Jon Boutcher the former Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police until his appointment as Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2023. [2] It is now led by Iain Livingstone, former Chief Constable of Police Scotland. [3]

Contents

Stakeknife, a Government asset and widely acknowledged to be Freddie Scappaticci led the IRA Internal Security Unit, also known as the Nutting Squad that had killed around thirty people while Scappaticci was involved with it. [1] Senior British officers had referred to Stakeknife as the "golden egg" due to the calibre of information he supplied. [1]

Research by the BBC television programme Panorama suggested that Stakeknife was so highly prized that other agents were sacrificed to conceal his identity. [1] Panorama claimed that Joseph Fenton was executed by the IRA despite Stakeknife informing his handlers that Fenton was to be killed. [1] The authorities failed to react and did nothing to prevent the murder. [1]

In July 2020 Boutcher expressed concern with the British Government's idea to close most legacy investigations and provide full investigations into only a few. He questioned whether the plan complied with the law. [2]

A year later, investigators working for Kenova announced that they had obtained new DNA evidence relating to the murder of Thomas Oliver. [4] [5]

Kenova interim report

On 8 March 2024, the Kenova interim report by Boutcher was published. On Stakeknife, it says, "The number of lives he saved is between high single figures and low double figures and nowhere near hundreds". He cost more lives than he ever saved. He was involved in criminality, terror and murders, that could not be defended. Boutcher said Scappaticci should have been prosecuted and called upon the Government and Republicans to apologise to all of the affected families who had suffered abduction and murder. The interim report lists a total of ten recommendations. [6]

The Kenova investigation has so far taken seven years and cost over £40,000,000. Northern Ireland first minister Michelle O'Neill reiterated her apologies for all the lives that were lost, during The Troubles. [7] David Cameron, the foreign secretary, stated that the Government's position was to await the Kenova final report, before taking any decisions.

Operation Denton

Operation Denton is an offshoot of Operation Kenova which examines actions of the Glenanne gang and its links with security forces. [8] It was initially headed by Jon Boutcher. [8]

In May 2024 Iain Livingstone, now head of Operation Denton, said that there was no doubt that there was collusion in the Glenanne series from those in British authorities. [9] He told RTE ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings [10] that his team would ‘define the character, the nature and the extent of that collusion’ and their assessment would be included in its report which is expected in 2025.

Undisclosed files

In August 2024, Iain Livingstone, former head of Operation Kenova, announced that MI5 had not disclosed all material it had on Stakeknife before Operation Kenova published a report earlier in 2024. [9] He said that he and Jon Boutcher, the former head of Kenova, had previously stated that they believed that they had been given access to all files that MI5 had in relation to Stakeknife. [9] He wrote a letter expressing his concerns to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn, former head of Operation Kenova Jon Boucher, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland and the head of MI5. [9] There are several hundreds of pages of undisclosed file and the search is ongoing. [9] Some may identify new leads and cast doubt on evidence obtained by Operation Kenova. [9] Based on an initial assessment he claimed that the files related to Stakeknife and not to other Kenova investigations, including Denton. [9]

Sinn Féin MP John Finucane said it was "disgraceful and unsurprising" that British security services had withheld information from the inquiry. [9] He also said that "As the British government's shameful Legacy Act was enacted to close down families’ access to the civil and criminal courts, British intelligence services have delayed the release of information to families who have waited for the truth for decades," and "The discovery that MI5 did not disclose vital information to the Kenova Inquiry may now further delay the publication of the full report into the investigation. This revelation will add to the trauma and the anguish of families of the victims, and I am calling on the investigation to process the new information as thoroughly and as quickly as possible". [9]

Baroness O'Loan, a member of Kenova's steering committee said MI5 had behaved "appallingly". [11] She also said that the new material may alter what families had been told previously. [11] She added that "MI5 should never have put the families in this position" and "This could be retraumatising... I think it is absolutely disgraceful." [11]

Originally the final Kenova report was to have been published before Christmas 2024 but it has been delayed to 2025 to assess the newly-disclosed material. [11]

Related Research Articles

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">Dublin and Monaghan bombings</span> 1974 terrorist bombings in Ireland

The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of co-ordinated bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland, carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Three car bombs exploded in Dublin during the evening rush hour and a fourth exploded in Monaghan almost ninety minutes later. They killed 35 civilians, including an unborn child, and injured almost 300. Together, the bombings were the deadliest attack of the conflict known as the Troubles, and the deadliest attack in the Republic's history. Most of the victims were young women, although the ages of the dead ranged from 4½ months up to 80 years.

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">Pat Finucane</span> Irish lawyer (1949–1989)

Patrick Finucane was a Northern Irish lawyer who specialised in criminal defence work. Finucane came to prominence due to his successful challenge of the British government in several important human rights cases during the 1980s. He was killed by loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), acting in collusion with British security services. In 2011, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, met with Pat Finucane's family and apologised for the collusion.

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.

Captain Frederick John Holroyd is a former British soldier who was based at the British Army's 3 Brigade HQ in mid-Ulster, Northern Ireland during the 1970s. He enlisted as a gunner in the Royal Artillery, and three years later, in 1964, he was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps. He volunteered for the Special Military Intelligence Unit in Northern Ireland in 1969, and he was trained at the Joint Services School of Intelligence. Once his training was finished, he was stationed in Portadown, where, for two and a half years up to 1975, he ran a series of intelligence operations. He resigned from the Army in 1976.

Martin Ingram is the pseudonym of ex-British Army soldier Ian Hurst, who served in the Intelligence Corps and Force Research Unit (FRU). He has made a number of allegations about the conduct of the British Army, its operations in Northern Ireland via the FRU, and against figures in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Féin.

The Internal Security Unit (ISU) was the counter-intelligence and interrogation unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). This unit was often referred to as the Nutting Squad.

The Reavey and O'Dowd killings were two coordinated gun attacks on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians died after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, broke into their homes and shot them. Three members of the Reavey family were shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O'Dowd family were shot at their home in Ballydougan. Two of the Reaveys and three of the O'Dowds were killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain haemorrhage almost a month later.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenanne gang</span> Informal alliance of Ulster loyalists active in the 1970s

The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area of counties Armagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The gang consisted of soldiers from the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Twenty-five UDR soldiers and RUC police officers were named as purported members of the gang. Details about the group have come from many sources, including the affidavit of former member and RUC officer John Weir; statements by other former members; police, army and court documents; and ballistics evidence linking the same weapons to various attacks. Since 2003, the group's activities have also been investigated by the 2006 Cassel Report, and three reports commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, known as the Barron Reports. A book focusing on the group's activities, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, by Anne Cadwallader, was published in 2013. It drew on all the aforementioned sources, as well as Historical Enquiries Team investigations. The book was the basis for the 2019 documentary film Unquiet Graves, directed by Sean Murray.

John Oliver Weir is an Ulster loyalist born and raised in the Republic of Ireland. He served as an officer in Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary's (RUC) Special Patrol Group (SPG), and was a volunteer in the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). As a member of the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade led by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson, Weir was a part of the Glenanne gang, a group of loyalist extremists that carried out sectarian attacks mainly in the County Armagh area in the mid-1970s.

Thomas Oliver was a 43-year-old Irish farmer who was tortured and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in July 1991, reportedly for passing information to the Garda Síochána. However, in the wake of the Stakeknife case it began to be suspected that Freddie Scappaticci – who ran the IRA's Internal Security Unit, which was responsible for torturing and killing Thomas Oliver – killed Oliver to conceal his identity as a double agent.

<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">Hillcrest Bar bombing</span> Bomb attack by the UVF in 1976

The Hillcrest Bar bombing, also known as the "Saint Patrick's Day bombing", took place on 17 March 1976 in Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group, detonated a car bomb outside a pub crowded with people celebrating Saint Patrick's Day. Four Catholic civilians were killed by the blast—including two 13-year-old boys standing outside—and almost 50 people were injured, some severely.

Catherine and Gerard Mahon were a husband and wife who lived in Twinbrook, Belfast. Gerard, aged twenty-eight, was a mechanic; Catherine, was twenty-seven. They were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 8 September 1985, the IRA alleging they were informers. However at least two of those responsible for their deaths were later uncovered as British agents within the IRA's Internal Security Unit, leaving the actual status of the Mahons as informers open to doubt.

John Joe McGee was an IRA volunteer who was formerly in the British Special Boat Service.

Margaret Perry was a 26-year-old woman from Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland who was abducted on 21 June 1991. After a tip from the IRA, her body was found buried across the border in a field in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, on 30 June 1992. She had been beaten to death. Her murder has never been solved.

Events from the year 2023 in Northern Ireland.

Jon Boutcher QPM is a senior British police officer. He was appointed as Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on 7 November 2023. He served as interim Chief Constable from 12 October 2023 whilst the recruitment process was ongoing to appoint someone permanently. He was the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police from 2015 until April 2019. He also leads Operation Kenova, a series of historical investigations into murders which occurred during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Batchelor, Tom (11 April 2017). "Police 'failed to investigate 18 murders in Northern Ireland to protect IRA mole'" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  2. 1 2 O'Neill, Julian (30 June 2020). "Jon Boutcher voices "extreme caution" over legacy idea". BBC News . Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  3. ↑ "Ex-Police Scotland chief to lead Kenova probe as Jon Boutcher takes up top PSNI job". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. 12 October 2023. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  4. ↑ Carroll, Rory (19 July 2021). "Police find new forensic evidence in case of farmer murdered by IRA". The Guardian . Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  5. ↑ "Investigation into IRA murder of Tom Oliver uncovers new DNA evidence". TheJournal.ie . Press Association. 19 July 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  6. ↑ "Operation Kenova Interim Report | Police Service of Northern Ireland".
  7. ↑ "First Minister Michelle O'Neill reiterates apology for all lives lost in Northern Ireland Troubles". UTV – ITV News. 8 March 2024.
  8. 1 2 O’Keeffe, Cormac (30 June 2022). "Garda chief to assist British probe into loyalist murder gang". Irish Examiner . Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Kearney, Vincent (7 August 2024). "Previously unseen MI5 files on Stakeknife found after inquiry ended". RTÉ News . Retrieved 8 August 2024.
  10. ↑ Kearney, Vincent (17 May 2024). "Dublin-Monaghan bomb gang investigator says 'there was collusion'". RTÉ News . Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  11. 1 2 3 4 O'Neill, Julian (7 August 2024). "MI5 finds new documents on Army's IRA spy". BBC News . Retrieved 23 August 2024.
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