Pressure on UK govt to name agent who worked inside IRA

The UK government was under growing pressure Monday to reveal the identity of a British army agent who carried out killings and torture while undercover with the Irish Republican Army.

A parliamentary committee on Monday called on the government to name the agent, known only as "Stakeknife", who led an IRA death squad known as a "nutting squad".

The agent operated inside the IRA in Northern Ireland in the 1970s during "The Troubles", the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland in which more than 3,500 people were killed.

The team Stakeknife led was tasked with interrogating and killing suspected traitors and informers.

In December, 2025, the final report of Operation Kenova, a UK police inquiry into the affair, concluded that Stakeknife had been guilty of the most serious crimes possible.

Its report, the fruit of a nine-year investigation, said neither the army nor MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, had been capable of controlling the agent.

On Monday, the parliamentary committee with responsibility for Northern Ireland argued that revealing the identity of Stakeknife would be "strongly in the public interest".

Doing so would "help build trust and confidence in the agencies of the state among all communities", said a statement from the committee.

"By naming Stakeknife, the Government can send a strong signal that agents who cross a line will not receive the protection of anonymity and help to build trust and confidence across all communities in Northern Ireland," said committee chairwoman Tonia Antoniazzi.

The agent in question has been linked to 14 murders and 15 abductions. While never formally identified, he is widely believed to have been Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci.

Scappaticci, who fled Northern Ireland in 2003 after the allegations first became public, died in 2023. He admitted being an IRA member but denied working for British agents.

The authors of the Operation Kenova report, who had also called on the government to identify Stakeknife, on Monday welcome the committee's position.

The Troubles was a conflict mainly in Northern Ireland over whether the province should remain under British rule or become part of a United Ireland.

It ran from the late 1960s until a 1998 peace accord largely ended the violence.