"He was instead, as a final report by Operation Kenova effectively revealed without officially doing so on Tuesday, for a long time Britain's most valuable spy inside the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, once described by an army general as the golden egg of the intelligence services. More pertinently to the torment of those related to his victims, he was a sadistic murderer who had been in the pay of the British state."
"In his dual role, as a British agent and head of the IRA's so-called nutting squad, an internal security unit dedicated to rooting out informants, Scappaticci would threaten to string up and skin his victims before offering to let them go free if they confessed. Then he would order, or indeed personally carry out, their execution. He would play taped confessions to the families left behind."
Freddie Scappaticci lived under the name Frank Cowley in West End, Woking, after changing his name by deed poll. He served for years as a highly valuable MI5 mole embedded in the IRA and simultaneously led the IRA's internal security 'nutting squad'. He threatened, tortured and sometimes skinned suspected informants, offered false reprieves for confessions, and ordered or personally carried out executions while playing taped confessions to victims' families. British intelligence possessed detailed knowledge of his activities and continued to use him, facilitating his departure from Northern Ireland as his identity became exposed. His conduct inflicted prolonged torment on victims' relatives.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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