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Prosecutions ruled out in Northern Ireland IRA double agent probe

Northern Ireland prosecutors said Wednesday they will not press charges against 16 people allegedly involved in murders and crimes during decades of sectarian conflict after a probe into Britain’s top double agent in the IRA.

The probe — set up in 2016 and named “Operation Kenova” — examined crimes such as murder and torture linked to the agent codenamed “Stakeknife” and the role played by the security services, including the domestic intelligence agency MI5.

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Stakeknife headed up a notorious “nutting squad” internal security unit within the IRA paramilitary group that brutally interrogated and murdered suspected spies, according to media reports.

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said Wednesday “there is insufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction for any of those reported”.

The individuals include one retired police officer, six former British military personnel, and nine former members of the IRA.

Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, who was alleged to have been Stakeknife, died in 2023.

Scappaticci admitted being a member of the IRA during the “Troubles”, three decades of largely sectarian conflict against British rule in Northern Ireland, but denied working for British agents.

Some 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles which ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

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Around 1,200 deaths remain under investigation, according to the UK government.

In total, the PPS received 26 files in relation to the Kenova operation, and said it gave “thorough and careful consideration to five files concerning 16 individuals”.

But “the events with which these (prosecution) decisions are concerned took place several decades ago and the witness and forensic evidence available was limited,” the statement read.

So far, no one has been prosecuted as a result of the Kenova probe.

The PPS said decisions on whether to prosecute 21 others named in 10 further Kenova files will be reached next year.

Last month victims of the conflict launched a legal challenge in Belfast to a recent UK law granting immunity to past combatants.

The new law, adopted by the UK parliament in London in September, offers amnesty to British security personnel and paramilitaries if they cooperate with its enquiries.

It will also end future civil litigation and coroners’ inquests into deaths which occurred during the Troubles, and is set to limit investigations of crimes from the era.

Amnesty International and Europe’s leading rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, have fiercely criticised the legislation as infringing victims’ rights.

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