Stakeknife: How Britain’s IRA mole got away with murder
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Friday, Operation Kenova, a long running investigation into a man known as Stakeknife, the British Army’s top spy within the IRA, will finally be published. Did the British government knowingly allow murder in order to protect its man on the inside?
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Guest: Sean O’Neill, senior writer, The Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Clips: ITV News, Policing Board, Thames TV, BBC.
Further listening: An unsolved murder, the Troubles, and the British state
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You can do this. |
| 0:06.0 | You're Tom Daly. You know the routine. |
| 0:10.0 | 30 degrees with a gentle spin, knitted jumpers in first. |
| 0:13.5 | Pirouette to the trunks, detergent. |
| 0:16.1 | Perform better on Sundays. |
| 0:18.5 | Get half-price electricity, 11 a.m. till 4 p.m. with Pixe A from British Gas. |
| 0:23.0 | Proud partners of Team G.B. and Paralympics G. B. |
| 0:26.0 | End 31st of March. Ties and sees apply. Yes. Yes. I've been in touch with Chantel. Oh yes. I've been in touch with Chantel. Oh yes, I've heard that you gave me the call. |
| 0:44.0 | Okay. |
| 0:45.0 | Yeah, and well I mean it's concerns the program it is made. |
| 0:50.0 | Yeah, I gather you have a lot more important information. |
| 0:55.0 | In 1993, on the 26th of August, a reporter sat in a Dublin hotel and phoned his source. A disgruntled high-ranking IRA figure, |
| 1:07.0 | apparently with dirt to shirt. I know. Yes. I don't want to talk on the phone. Okay. The reporter recorded the call, but such was the way at the time British security officials banned it from being broadcast. |
| 1:27.0 | Little did the reporter know, this man wasn't just a chatty IRA leader. He was also a British spy, arguably the most |
| 1:36.7 | important of the Troubles, but also one of the most dangerous. |
| 1:41.5 | As a British agent, Scapetichi was given a number 6126 and a code name, Steakknife. |
| 1:50.2 | On Friday a long-awaited investigation will report on steak knife what he did and what his British handlers knew. |
| 1:58.0 | I have now got agreements with the DPP and with the head of the Canova team that we can move to publication on the 8th of March this year. |
| 2:08.6 | Was he allowed to murder to cover the fact he was an informant. There is a story to be told. |
| 2:14.0 | A lot of families don't actually want prosecutions. |
| 2:17.0 | They just want to know what happened. |
| 2:19.0 | And that's been a massive part of the whole, |
... |
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