8.2.04

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | MoD forces Radio 4 to cancel 'Stakeknife' author interview

MoD forces Radio 4 to cancel 'Stakeknife' author interview

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday February 8, 2004
The Observer

The BBC confirmed last night that it was pulling the plug on a Today programme interview with a former British Army intelligence officer over fears of a Ministry of Defence injunction.
The decision prevents another major row breaking out between the MoD and the Radio 4 programme following the criticism of the BBC in the Hutton Report.

Martin Ingrams, a non-commissioned officer with the secretive Force Research Unit, had been scheduled to speak on the show tomorrow morning with John Humphrys about his new book Stakeknife - the inside story of one of the Army's most important agents working within the IRA.

Ingrams's publishers, O'Brien Press, claimed that the corporation informed them over the weekend they could not put the ex-soldier on air due to fears that Today would be in breach of the MoD injunction. The Ministry has issued several gagging orders preventing Ingrams talking about his role as an FRU handler of loyalist and republican agents in Northern Ireland.

The book will detail the role of 'Stakeknife' inside the IRA's internal security unit, the so-called Nutting Squad. The authors, Ingrams and Greg Harkin, allege that Stakeknife is the nom de plume of west Belfast republican Freddie Scappaticci.

The former republican internee has consistently denied the allegations, claiming they have endangered his life and that of his family. Last week he failed in Belfast High Court to obtain an injunction banning the publication of the book throughout the UK.

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: 'Mr Ingrams's publishers have now informed us that he is prevented from giving this interview by the terms of an injunction. So the interview will not take place. We have to comply with the terms of the injunction.'

Ingrams has been the subject of several MoD injunctions aimed at preventing him from discussing in public the FRU's role in Northern Ireland's dirty war. The former soldier has been one of the key sources from inside the British military to claim there was collusion between the security forces and loyalist terrorists.

Ingrams, one of the Army's most infamous whistleblowers, has alleged the FRU and RUC Special Branch knew the Ulster Defence Association were about to assassinate the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 but did nothing to stop the murder.

The retired soldier has fled to the Irish Republic fearing prosecution in the UK for breaching the Official Secrets Act. In his new book, Ingrams will also reveal further details about Stakeknife's involvement in the IRA and how his British Army handlers allowed him to murder and torture other agents unmasked by the Provos' internal security squad.

Last night Ingrams and Harkin refused to discuss the book's contents due to a commercial deal with other Sunday newspapers.

Regardless of the MoD gagging order against Ingrams, O'Brien Press is understood to be putting the book into shops in England and Wales.



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