UTV Vodcast: The Stakeknife report finds lives were lost needlessly

More lives were probably lost than saved through the Army’s operation of its top agent inside the IRA’s internal security unit during the Troubles, a major independent investigation has found. The interim findings of Operation Kenova examined 101 murders and abductions linked to the Provisional IRA’s so-called “nutting squad” responsible for interrogating, torturing and murdering people suspected of passing information to the security forces during the conflict. Operation Kenova, which was undertaken by Bedfordshire Police and ran for seven years at a cost of approximately £40 million, examined the role of the Army’s prized agent embedded in the heart of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit (ISU), an individual known as Stakeknife. The agent Stakeknife was widely believed to be west Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, who was 77 when he died last year.

Delivering his report Jon Boutcher said the lives saved by the double agents activities were in the single figures. He said the intelligence services' believe Stakeknife was the "golden goose" was the thing of "fables and fairytales".

In this week's UTV Vodcast, Carol Jordan and Jordan Moates discuss the report, its findings and the fall out.

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