Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
2 0 Nov/Dec 2016
Even a benign interpretation suggests Fulton
misled Cory.
FULTON TALKS TO CAMPAIGNERS IN
In late 1999 Fulton began interacting with cam
-
paigners along the border after being introduced,
he said, by the Northern Editor of a British news-
paper who he described as a Registered Special
Branch informant. He gave information to them
about his activities in Newry and Dundalk.
CORY IN DUNDALK
Reliable sources describe what happened. At a
meeting in Dundalk in 2003 Cory is said to have
remarked to campaigners looking for an investi
-
gation into the Breen and Buchanan murders,
that while he believed there were questions to
answer he had no direct evidence to argue for a
Tribunal of Inquiry. According to sources the
“Fulton statement” was written up for Fulton
including a direct allegation against Corrigan, he
signed it and subsequently appeared before
Cory just weeks before Cory’s final report. This
normally reliable source is adamant that what
became seen as Fulton’s central allegation – the
passing of information from Corrigan to Mooch
Blair about Oliver, was not made and that, in
fact, the allegation was rather that Corrigan had
tipped off Blair about Breen and Buchanan’s
arrival at Dundalk station.
Village‘s sources, however, are adamant that
the initial statement as given to Cory concerned
Corrigan giving information to IRA member Pat
-
rick ‘Mooch’ Blair about the arrival of Breen and
Buchanan at Dundalk Garda station. Village‘s
sources insists that the statement described
how Detective Sergeant Corrigan came out of
Dundalk Station and said to ‘Mooch’ Blair – who
was supposedly sitting in a car with Fulton –
“they’re here”, after Breen and Buchanan had
entered Dundalk.
Crucially, by the time Fulton reached Smith-
wick the alleged collusion had morphed into
allegations about Corrigan’s passing ‘Mooch’
Blair information about Tom Oliver. Not having
access to the original Cory documents it has not
been possible to verify – and Patrick Blair and
Corrigan utterly deny – the allegations.
The Tribunal unsurprisingly declared that the
murder of Tom Oliver was not part of its remit,
but then accepted evidence that Corrigan had
given information that set him up for murder.
This was an unusual approach and of course Cor-
rigan took legal action by way of Judicial Review.
Following discussions between the parties, on
25 May 2016, the Tribunal confirmed, in a state-
ment read to the High Court, that, whatever
evidence it had heard, its final report had made
no finding that the killing of Oliver was as a result
of information the ex-garda provided to the Pro-
visional IRA.
The action was then struck out by the High
Court on the following terms:
“While the Tribunal accepted the evidence of
Kevin Fulton there was no finding in the Tribu-
nal’s report that the killing of Mr Oliver was as a
result of the information provided by Mr Corrigan
to the IRA”.
The Smithwick Inquiry ended with an enig-
matic conclusion: a collusion – which this article
has shown was not satisfactorily proven, with no
named colluder. It is important that it is regis-
tered by anyone concerned with the truth that
Smithwick had to close down the judicial review
– it risked exposing the mess, the confusion and
the contradictions that lie at the heart of its final
report.
The problem with Smithwick is that it was
bedevilled by its dependence on the UK 'Security
Services' which determined how little intelli-
gence the Tribunal Team would receive, and it
was badly chaired. The Tribunal was instigated
largely as a sop to Unionists to maximise pres
-
sure on the British Government to carry out
inquiries into the likes of Pat Finucane’s murder
and Bloody Sunday. The exercise was tainted in
its conception and in its application.
In the end all that Fulton
alleged is that Corrigan told
Blair that a Cooley Farmer,
Tom Oliver, was giving
information to the Garda
about PIRA weapons and
their movements
NEWS
Under-researched
pieces by Myers and
Harndon caused
havoc in the RUC
Crucially the
legible redaction
reads "With regard
to queries...no
evidence exists
nor can any
documentation
be located which
evidences Garda
collusion with
subversives"
Nov/Dec 2016 2 1
I
N 2006 Smithwick received an application
from Freddie Scappaticci for legal representa-
tion though this was turned down. By May
2011, however, the Tribunal informed Scappat-
icci’s solicitor that as he now “appeared to be a
person whose reputation was at risk, i.e. a
person against whom allegations may be made”,
he would be allowed limited representation and
information.
In a decision made on 6th June 2011 Smithwick
allowed his lawyers limited access to Tribunal
statements as they applied to him. After a fur
-
ther application heard in July 2011, that legal
right was extended to limited legal representa-
tion at the Tribunal on specified occasions on
matters that concerned him. Scappaticci’s law-
yers were alerted to at least some of the contents
of Fulton’s statement before it was distributed to
other parties: Corrigan’s lawyers did not receive
the final Fulton statement with its extraordinary
allegations involving Tom Oliver, until November
2011 five months after it was received and just
two weeks before the evidence of former PIRA
man, Mooch Patrick Blair, a crucial witness.
Operation Kenova is an investigation into the
executions of suspected informants by the Army
agent Stakeknife. It notes that "many are con-
cerned at the involvement of this alleged State
agent in kidnap, torture and murder by the Pro
-
visional IRA during ‘the troubles’ and believe
they were preventable”. It will also “look at
whether there is evidence of criminal offences
having been committed by members of the Brit-
ish Army, the Security Services or other
government personnel”. The overriding priority
of the investigation is to discover the circum-
stances of how and why people died, to establish
the truth regarding those offences covered
within the Terms of Reference.
According to Eamon Mallie: “A question
screaming out for an answer is how the Army and
MI5 explain and justify the alleged role of
Stakeknife – an agent in that part of the IRA that
interrogated and tortured other suspected
agents, steps often leading to execution. Under
what rules of intelligence gathering or agent
handling was that possible? Were other agents
sacrificed in those places where Stakeknife was
at play?”.
From an Italian immigrant family and originally
from the Markets area of Belfast builder Freddie
Scappaticci was fined for riotous assembly in
1970 after being caught up in "the Troubles" and,
one year later, was interned without trial with,
among others, Gerry Adams. He became deputy
head of the IRA's internal security, its so-called
nutting squad. In 1978 he was apparently beaten
by a fellow high-ranking member of the Provi-
sional IRA, prompting him to offer his services
to the British security services; he eventually
came under the control of the British army’s
shadowy FRU “force research unit”. Sir John
Wilsey, at one time the most senior army officer
in Northern Ireland, was secretly recorded in
2012 by a military intelligence whistleblower
claiming to be a television news researcher.
Wilsey described Stakeknife as “our most
important secret”, “a golden egg”…“We were
terribly cagey about Fred”. Scappaticci was
named in the press as Stakeknife - Britain's top
agent inside the IRA in 2003 and soon resurfaced
at a press conference in Belfast, denying that he
had ever worked for Army intelligence or been
involved in terrorism. However, shortly after-
wards he fled Belfast.
In his book Killing Rage former IRA man Eamon
Collins, himself killed by the IRA, characterised
Scappaticci as “small and barrel-chested with
classic Mediterranean looks – olive-skinned
with tight black curly hair”. He described him as
a cold-hearted killer and conveyed graphic
details of his viciousness. Scap is now in his late
60s and living in hiding under security-service
protection. The media is not allowed to report
anything that could suggest where he is living or
to show images of what he now looks like.
His activities as agent ‘Stakenife’ are now the
subject of a major investigation in Northern Ire
-
land involving over 50 officers, Operation
Kenova.
The Northern Ireland Director of Public Pros
-
ecutions, Barra McGrory, announced in 2015 that
he had asked the chief constable of the PSNI,
George Hamilton, to investigate allegations that
Scappaticci was involved in at least 24 murders.
It is speculated that he could be responsible for
up to 40, some of his victims allegedly sacrificed
to protect his identity. McGrory also asked Ham-
ilton to investigate the British security-service
controllers who handled him. Operation Kenova
is headed by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher of
Bedfordshire Constabulary has already begun to
talk to victims’ families. It is not yet clear if the
investigation will extend to the murder of Tom
Oliver, and examine the allegations of Fulton
made to the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin that
Scappaticci was involved in the kidnap and inter-
rogation of Oliver who was subsequently
murdered in Louth before his body was dumped
in South Armagh in July1991. Scappaticci was an
important, though unseen presence, at the Tri-
bunal - his interests represented by his lawyers,
paid by the Irish taxpayer.
Scappaticci sought legal representation to
counter claims by Fulton that he was involved in
the Tom Oliver abduction and murder.
At one stage Scappaticci’s senior counsel put
it to Fulton: “You see, what I am suggesting to
you Mr Fulton is that you are desperate for
attention...and naming Mr Scappaticci is an
attempt to get the Spotlight back on you? ......
And I suggest [to]you that you evidence that he
was involved in any matter concerning you or
Tom Oliver, or indeed in 1994, is a fabrication
for that reason”.
Scappaticci enjoyed increasing levels of rep
-
resentation at the Tribunal and unsuccessfully
pursued a Judicial Review of Smithwick’s deci-
sion to allow Fulton to give evidence behind a
screen. His barrister described him as an atten-
tion-seeker who lied about Scappaticci. Fulton,
of course, denied this. Credible sources maintain
that he spoke to Tribunal personnel privately for
three days in Dublin and some sources say he
denied having anything to do with the Tom Oliver
murder. but the Tribunal has denied that Scap-
paticci engaged with them.
If he did give evidence the legal teams were
not informed. The Tribunal was so confused that
such anomalies were the least of its problems.
Scappaticci’s final handler, an Army Intelli-
gence Major and one of the most important Army
Intelligence Officers based in Northern Ireland,
gave evidence to the Tribunal in April 2012 that,
contrary to Fulton’s' claims, Scappaticci had
never given any information about Owen Corri-
gan colluding with PIRA nor was there any
evidence, whatever, to that effect.
Fulton’s specific and momentous allegation
was that in 2001 Corrigan met Patrick ‘Mooch’
Blair, a senior IRA member, in the car-park of Fin-
tan’s Céilí House near Dundalk, and told Blair
that Oliver was passing information about the
IRA to the Garda Síochána. Blair is then alleged
to have threatened to murder Tom Oliver, who
was indeed killed soon afterwards. Fulton had
become Blair’s driver.
Fulton was a professionally trained dissem-
bler and kept his handlers in MI5 and Army
intelligence supplied with information for well
over a decade.
The arrival in 2012 of the (now) Deputy Head
of the PSNI Drew Harris with his evidence not
only served to exonerate Corrigan but also to
overshadow Fulton’s allegations against
Scappaticci.
Certainly the Smithwick Tribunal made no
useful findings but almost certainly there was no
reason for the Smithwick Tribunal in the first
place.
Justice and Truth demand that the truth of why
Tom Oliver was killed, and the role of one of the
most brutal double agents, Stakeknife in it, are
ascertained.
Freddie Scappaticci, 2003
Enter Freddie Scappaticci
SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL
