Northern Ireland (merged thread)

[Azor]

The BBC's documentary series 'Panorama' had a powerful programme this week, entitled 'The Spy in the IRA', who was handled or "run" by the Army (using a specialist unit, the Field Research Unit aka the "Fru") not the police and reporting to the Security Service (MI5).

From the programme's website:Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...spy-in-the-ira

It raises many hard questions: Were UK agents allowed to die to cover Stakeknife? How to navigate the 'moral maze' of the "greater good" coming at a price. Was the Provisional IRA / Sinn Fein 'pushed into peace' by being infiltrated? Were all parties restrained by the knowledge of Stakeknife's activities?

He is incidentally still alive and by implication living in Northern Ireland! There is a remarkably thin wiki:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Scappaticci

But how much evidence is there that Scappaticci was a British agent? The PIRA seems to believe his denials and he lives in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the British were using him to cover for another source(s)? If so, was the British government subjecting him to risk of reprisal? Yet he is a murderer...

Murky indeed...