Now that the British government has admitted that its highest-placed spy in the IRA killed and tortured other British agents in Northern Ireland, the question is: Will anyone apologize to those who survived the torture and the relatives of the departed?

Denying the deadly misdeeds of one of their own and not seeking forgiveness are two established practices for misbehaving governments everywhere. But the British are masters of those tactics. Especially during The Troubles. The UK government spy agency, MI 5, was slow to comply with requests for evidence and the UK “will not consider a state apology while litigation remains ongoing and ahead of a final report that is yet to be published”. The final report has been published. The apology should be coming any day now. Right?

But it’s not just the Brits who are being called upon to apologize for what’s known as the Stakeknife Scandal. The final report after years of investigation and 50 million pounds spent also calls on IRA leaders to say they’re sorry. A year ago, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill said this, “I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict, without exception” as part of a longer, more detailed apology.

WHO WAS STAKEKINIFE?

Freddie Scappiticci, the agent known as Stakeknife but still not officially id’ed as such, worked his way up through the IRA ranks beginning in 1969. By the late 1970s, after serving time in Long Kesh with Gerry Adams and others, he sold out to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force in NI. The British Army took him on as an agent with the full knowledge and cooperation of MI5, the FBI of Britain.

JEWEL IN THE CROWN OF BRIT INTELLIGENCE

What a catch! Never had MI5 had an agent this close to the decision makers of the IRA. If that meant that other agents had to die to protect his identity, so be it. These victims often dispatched by Scappiticci himself, were agents who had either been recruited from the IRA or planted in their ranks. In other words, they were on the same team. Not only were other British agents expendable, so were volunteers for the IRA.

British security sources were quoted as saying he (Scappiticci was behind virtually every major failed IRA mission over a 15-year period. He was supposedly the rat who betrayed the Gibraltar Three, the Eksund gun runners and the IRA men assassinated at Loughgall. These and other stories about Scappaticci's alleged exploits are dismissed by IRA sources.

That was published in the Irish Post in 2003. The Stakeknife saga has been common knowledge in Ireland and the UK for most of this century. Multiple newspaper reports have identified Scappaticci and inventoried his efforts to betray the IRA and assist the British. (See Further Reading below). But here’s the thing, if the British government apologizes it will be admitting that his life was worth more than the lives of those he killed and tortured with the full knowledge of his handlers. If the IRA apologizes it’s admitting that it allowed an informer - a tout – a rat – into the highest echelon of its leadership. If they had him killed it would have been an acknowledgement of his successful infiltration. (“Scappaticci” died of a stroke in 2023.)

The republican movement says it believes Freddie's denials. Senior IRA figures have assured him that they know he is not Stakeknife. But in the paranoid world of paramilitaries and spook agencies, it's impossible to know what to believe.

NOT READY FOR NETFLIX

This story has so many shady players and moving parts so it’s unlikely we will ever see an eight-part Netflix series on Stakeknife. Say Nothing may have exposed criminality by both sides, but this case is more complicated. Why did Freddie Scappittici turn on his mates in the IRA and become an informer? Was it for money? (He was reportedly paid the British equivalent of at least $140,000 annually.) How did the IRA let a British agent get so close to leadership and gain knowledge of operations and the informers in the IRA ranks? (The battlefield in NI is littered with the remains of real spies and suspected spies who weren’t.)How many other British agents were sacrificed to protect Scap’s secret? How high up in British intelligence were his actions sanctioned? (Ten Downing Street?) Why hasn’t anyone who ran this operation for the British government been sacked? Did his British Army handlers really plan a farewell banquet for Scappiticci before he died in 2023 of multiple strokes? (Yes.)

A NEW NEVER ENDING STORY

Stakeknife lends itself to literary efforts. It’s already been written about in several works of fiction and non-fiction. Here are just a few: True Crime - Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents in Ireland by Martin Ingram and Greg Harkin, Stakeknife's Dirty War: The Inside Story of Scappaticci, the IRA's Nutting Squad, and the British Spooks who Ran the War by Richard O'Rawe and Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Spies, Murder, and Justice in Northern Ireland by Henry Hemming. (I can vouch for the O’Rawe and Hemming books.) Fiction – Fans of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series will be pleased to learn that Stakeknife plays a role in the least book Clown Town. It’s an operation called PItchfork. “...the dirt would not be easiiy be swept away. A psychopath had been used and protected, paid and pensioned off, despite possibly being responsible for ending more lives than he saved.” The final report on the operation states more than once that Freddie Scappittici (though not id’ed) took more lives than he saved with his spying.

Besides calling for the British government and the IRA to apologize fior Stakeknife, the Kenova report makes this recommendation: A commitment in relation to the Day of Reflection on 21st June as follows:Work with statutory, third and faith sectors to recognise and promote the Annual Day of Reflection on 21st June each year which aims to acknowledge the deep hurt and pain caused, allows reflection and provides a commitment to a peaceful society.

No need to mark your calendars just yet