Operation “Kinova” reveals details of a British “conspiracy” in Ireland

4th February 2025

3 minutes read

Operation "Kinova" reveals details of a British "conspiracy" in Ireland

As the investigations near their conclusion, families hope to find answers about the killings of their loved ones by a unit of the British army.

In January 1990, British Deputy Chief of Police John Stevens was planning a raid on the homes of members of a Protestant paramilitary group who were killing Catholics using secret police intelligence when he received the news that his office and all the evidence he had collected had been set on fire.

To this day, Stevens, who became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and is now a Lord, believes that a secret British army unit called the Force Research Unit (FRU) set fire to his office to cover up its role in the killings of innocent Catholics by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland.

This group opposed separation from Britain, and apparently, Britain provided them with intelligence to counter the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In a statement to the British newspaper The Telegraph, Lord Stevens revealed that he had discovered that the British state was complicit in a criminal conspiracy with paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.

The military intelligence unit was also known for its dealings with Freddy Scappaticci, nicknamed “Steakknife,” a prominent IRA spy linked to kidnappings, torture, and murder.

Over the course of seven years, Freddy Scappaticci’s life, as head of security for the IRA and a double agent during the Troubles, was the subject of a police investigation under Operation “Kinova,” which is expected to publish its final report this year.

Scappaticci was linked to the deaths of at least 18 people whom the IRA suspected of being spies, while receiving a salary of £80,000 to spy on behalf of the British Army.

It was revealed that agents of the terrorist groups stirred chaos in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, making bombs, acquiring weapons, planning murders, and shooting civilians, while being on the British state’s payroll, sending all the information to their handlers in the army and police.

The military intelligence unit and the special branch had agents on both sides, that is, within the IRA, which was waging a violent campaign for the unification of Ireland, and also among the Protestant loyalist paramilitary militias that wanted to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom.

As former soldiers say, intelligence succeeded in reducing IRA activity, but families who lost loved ones to spies are still trying to understand why this information was not used to save their loved ones.

The military intelligence unit, a secret unit of the British army, was established in 1979 by former head of British intelligence Maurice Oldfield. Its purpose was to turn paramilitary fighters into spies. In 1987, Brigadier Gordon Kerr took command of the unit.

The most famous agent of the Force Research Unit was not “Steakknife,” but Brian Nelson, the head of intelligence for the UDA, known as Agent 6137, who was involved in 29 murders and whom Lord Stevens described as “a dangerous psychopath and utterly untrustworthy.”

Through leaks in the police and army, Nelson obtained intelligence on suspected IRA members, including names, addresses, and the cars they drove, information that he passed on to UDA gunmen, who then carried out the subsequent assassinations. His handlers knew everything and even helped him by providing accurate information.

Nelson pleaded guilty to 20 charges, including five counts of conspiracy to murder, but the most serious murder charges were dropped. In 2023, Scappaticci died, fleeing justice.

To date, Lord Stevens has only released a 15-page summary of his report due to national security risks, but he hopes that the full report will be published by the end of the Kinova operation this year.