31 December 2005. Thanks to A.

Martin Ingram, a pseudonym, was a British Army (Force Research Unit) covert agent in Northern Ireland.

[Martin Ingram writes:]

  Every time an agent is exposed within the Sinn Fein /IRA organisation you see deep turmoil caused within Republicanism by this exposure, I suppose that is a natural and understandable reaction. Mick Hall in his article dated 21/12/2005 entitled ‘Defeating the enemy within’ is naïve in believing Sinn Fein to be a normal political party. How can it be when it is controlled and colludes with the British Administration? What is required is a new party that represents all strands of the broad Nationalist/Republican interest, free from British influence. When I read Mick’s article I just could not help but enjoy a momentary smile. This warmth is not generated from a desire to see Republicans squirm or become embarrassed but by a genuine admiration for my former colleagues who have run brave agents in a hostile environment.

  Any momentary warmth soon evaporates and I revert back into my Nationalist persona. I honestly do believe in a United Ireland and it is an achievable and a just cause. That said it won’t be achieved by murder and corruption and even if it could be it would not be worth the price. I am also certain that articles like Mick Halls dated 21/12/2005 do certainly not help the cause. One may as well be asked to hibernate until the next tout is exposed if you follow Mick’s logic.

  I can hear certain elements asking loudly why should we trust this fucking Brit? Well I would turn that question 180 degrees and ask WHY would the RM trust those who have been at the helm of the Republican ship for over two and half decades and achieved WHAT? A stranded ship going anywhere but home.

  The peace process today. The GFA is full of ifs’ and buts’ and more than a few maybes. We have PIRA in retirement mode with a public stance that all its weapons have been decommissioned. I can’t help thinking with a smirk what South Armagh and Tyrone Republicans think of that goodwill gesture? After all have the Loyalists not been able to retain the weapons that it acquired from South Africa with a little help from my colleagues within the FRU? I thought this GFA agreement was based upon equality. Who negotiated that one??

  We understand the Republican leadership negotiated a deal at Hillsborough in 2003, which clearly stated all persons who had committed a scheduled offence, would be included in the legislation dealing with OTRs. Now Sinn Fein lied about when this deal was struck but thanks to the SDLP who has provided the documentary evidence we know the truth. Now even a fool would surmise that the British would use any opportunity that was available to admonish its’ members who have undoubtedly committed criminal/scheduled offences. You don’t need to be Einstein to see that train coming. Now Adams isn’t any Einstein but on the other hand he is no fool either? So WHY did he agree to this deal? Did he not think that the victims of Bloody Sunday Dublin/ Monaghan would fail to notice this sleight of hand or did he not care?

  I accept Sinn Fein have finally backed away from this deal - but they had two feet in it for a long time, why? The sight of Connor Murphy stood proud and upright defending this Sinn Fein British Govt joint agreement outside the British parliament in London was impressive. I wonder did Connor really believe in that legislation or was he just on a mission for Gerry. Over to you, Connor?   

  Now lets be generous to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness on this. Maybe Gerry and Martin with a few words of comfort from their old comrade Dennis and compulsive M & S shopper were having a bad day when they negotiated this deal, no problem with that, we all have off days. The problem though here is when the world woke up and said: Eh this is not on what did Sinn Fein do. It did what it knows best, it lies. It claimed that it did not know that State forces could be included in this deal to allow a small number of IRA/Loyalists who were OTR to return home. The SDLP had to provide the evidence that Sinn Fein agreed this deal years ago and only then did Sinn Fein stumble and start to back track. Suddenly the penny dropped with Gerry and he realised he could no longer walk hand in hand with Tony Blair on this one.

  Let us move on to the topical issue of agents. Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness know, only too well, how and why agents operate? They operate to provide both tactical and strategic intelligence upon the target and to allow the persons charged with operating those agents to make informed decisions. Those decisions will be designed to disrupt the effective running of the target and to influence its’ own decisions into areas which are controllable and desired. In other words make the enemy do what you want it to do without it knowing because you want that target to operate for as long as possible believing it is operating to its own agenda.

  Now when we all stop smirking we can get back to the serious business.

  If you are a Republican one would assume rightly you would be asking the following question of the movement. How do we counter this type of activity? (Espionage - or spying for the layman).

  The obvious questions a republican should have been asking over the last twenty-five years are some of the following.

  Firstly, you would put yourself in your enemies mind and work out your own Vulnerable Points (VP). You would then - armed with this information - develop a sophisticated security department, whose sole job would be to analyse and expose any agents who work against your interests, just like the Brits have. It would be manned by dedicated and trustworthy individuals and rotated and at unpredictable intervals to disrupt any long-term infiltration. Republicans would know that the one unit in its army that could cause the most harm if compromised would be the Security/ Intelligence Department.

  What did the IRA do under Adams/McGuinness leadership? It established a unit manned by one ex-British marine ( J J Magee) and promoted Freddie Scappaticci to his deputy.

  Now either Adams and McGuinness are the two unluckiest people on this planet or it was no accident. Today everybody knows about Stake Knife (Freddy). Even Messrs Adams and McGuinness - who were initially reluctant to admit that Freddie (and others) whose roles within the Security department were as paid informers and killers. Ok, lets assume more bad luck here and give the benefit of doubt to Adams and McGuinness.

  No problem. Because we have done our homework. We know what our VP are and we have worked out that it is best to change personnel at regular intervals to avoid prolonged damage if indeed the Brits managed to compromise us.

  Now did that happen under Adams/McGuinness leadership? NO. What do you mean NO? Ok, so they did not regularly change these personnel but surely they did change them at some stage?

  The truth is they did not change them at all until one died through cancer and the other lasted more than twenty-five years before he was retired. Well, let’s ask Mr Adams that question. Why did you retire Freddy?

  Ok, lets assume that both Adams/McGuinness are trusting individuals and have been unlucky by being caught short on this one? Lets move on.

  During my first tour in NI I worked for the Force Research Unit in Derry. We had a very, very nice man on our books that worked for us as an agent, he was called Frank Hegarty. The Intelligence services knew through a vast army of PIRA informers that the IRA was being supplied with modern weaponry from Libya. This information had been gathered for many months prior to the shipments.

  I was only in my mid-twenties during this period. Although I had been in NI for a couple of years at this time. I had been asked a few months prior to become involved with Frankie code name 3018 on a co-handler basis. At this time Frankie was not a prolific informer, he had old links back to the IRA of today but not a lot else. He had I was told by my boss some friendship or past association with Martin McGuinness and the agent should be encouraged to become closer to McGuinness. I met this man and quickly developed warmth for him. He was a genuine working class man who like myself enjoyed the dogs, horses and women. I liked him. That said he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I admit I never thought twice about asking Frankie to get alongside McGuinness. Frankie complied with our request and became involved with McGuinness. McGuinness vouched for this man against the advice of other senior Republicans. Astoundingly within months was allocated a massive cache of arms and munitions. Now that was lucky was it not? Sometime later this cache of arms was recovered and Frank was recovered to a place of safety. It was at the time the largest ever find in the Island of Ireland.

  My Father suddenly became ill before the recovery of the arms and Frankos exposure. I requested and was offered a position within a security department close to my hometown and a rise in rank for good service was also appreciated. This was a compassionate posting. Within two weeks I had left Derry and although I returned subsequently to the FRU after my father died it was never quite the same again.

  During this compassionate posting I was asked to become involved in the resettlement of two informers who had become exposed and because I had first hand knowledge of both of them I accepted with the blessing of my father who was very ill. Over a period of time L Branch was looking after both Frank Hegarty and Willie Carlin. During this period I met with both Frank and Willie on almost a daily basis.

  During this period Willie Carlin received a phone call directly from Martin McGuinness. This phone call was taped and reports made to record this event. McGuinness reassured Willie Carlin that all would be well and he should return to Derry his hometown to be with his family and he (McGuinness) would personally vouch for Frank’s safety. Once the phone call had finished Carlin told me that he (McGuinness) must think I am a fucking idiot. I had to agree and we both shared a smile.

  I prepared a report and handed the tapes over to my boss, Lt Col Kerr. Given Martin McGuinness’ position within the PIRA I took this to be a conspiracy to murder. Kerr concurred and to be honest I never saw sight of either the report or the tape again. A few years ago Carlin spoke to Liam Clarke at the Sunday Times and he mentioned the phone calls made by McGuinness to reassure and hopefully allow him to return home. Carlin did not know the call was taped.

  I also had contact with Frank Hegarty and he too informed me that he also had contact with McGuinness. Frank, too, had also been offered a safe return by McGuinness. It is true that Frank was depressed and missed his family very much and his hometown of Derry. I was upset at the state of this man. He was depressed, but as far as I knew, he had not been to see a doctor. I had been assigned to Carlin on a 24 hr basis and only occasionally did I have contact with Frank. I think I met with Frank two or three times over a few weeks. Frank told me that McGuinness had made it clear - come home and the mess can be sorted. I told Frank to forget it; it was not going to happen.

  The two people who had been assigned to baby-sit Frank were the easygoing sort and one of them was not a badged FRU member. At the time I did not really think much about this decision. Although it was a strange one. I was aware that Kerr thought Frank to be a security concern and his depression was a potential problem for the FRU. I did not for one moment think that they would allow Frank to return to Derry and if he did they would make it impossible - or at least very difficult - for the IRA to operate against him. Freddie Scappaticci, as the PIRA internal security man, gave the inside story of where, when and how Frank was to be got. What did the FRU do? Fuck all!! Why? I don’t know except I know they could have done a lot. It certainly helped Martin though! A little credibility restored. Derry to the best of my knowledge only ever caught and dealt with one real informer and that one was certainly not Paddy Flood. Why is that? Bad LUCK Martin would argue.

  If you listen carefully to the Freddie tapes of his conversation at the Culloden hotel with the journalists, he neatly avoids the question in relation to who killed Franko. I wonder why? Perhaps that was one step too far even for brassed neck Freddie.

  I know Frank was murdered by a British Agent (Freddy Scappaticci) accompanied or at least directed by McGuinness and others. It was not just bad luck that killed Frank he was a victim of collusion. Last year I had the privilege of speaking with his son, he is a victim and he deserves the truth, not Sinn Fein/Brits version of it…

  Today, we know that Frank did return to Derry and we know from his family that McGuinness did have some part to play in his decision to meet with members of the PIRA just over the border into Donegal. Indeed there is not much we don’t know about that murder. We know the police and others including the Cook report investigated McGuinness. We know the police had prepared a case for prosecution (Operation Taurus) and were confident in their case, indeed unusually for terrorist related offences, the police had the confidence of three witnesses prepared to give evidence against Martin, that was bad luck, Eh, Martin. No problem though his luck suddenly changed for the better. We now know that in a similar way to Stormontgate the decision to proceed with the case was NOT in the public interest and it was suggested to the police in a secret document now in the public domain that McGuinness was shortly to meet with the Govt to discuss the future. The Police were told to back off McGuinness. The case was dropped. It looks like Martin's luck had changed? Not bad except this activity is not justice, this is collusion.

  I could go on about this chapter in McGuinness/Hegarty incident but in legal correspondence (i.e. when the MOD attempted to prosecute me and the Sunday Times) the Treasury solicitor makes reference to matters affecting National Security in relation to the Frank Hegarty case. Well the man's dead, the weapons recovered, what’s left? Ah, Say no more lads, your secrets are safe with me!

  In recent times individuals from the security forces, who have their own agenda, have provided certain documents to others which I have seen sight off and which if authentic - and I have no reason to doubt their authenticity - would indicate that Martin McGuinness has had more than his fair share of bad luck.

  Lets just assume that Martin is a really unlucky guy, lets see if his mate Gerry is any luckier.

  A security force agent Brian Nelson hated Adams with buckets of venom. He had planned to have Gerry killed and informed his handlers of his intention. His handlers did not take the high moral ground and say to their agent ‘you can not and will not do that’. Instead they did not inform Nelson that they had been informed by their command staff to frustrate this attack. Having secured the full details of the attack being planned by Nelson the handlers employed the services of other specialist units to tamper with the ammunition that was to be used in the attack and thus kid Nelson and the UDA into thinking that their attack upon Adams was just unlucky.

  This incident was the very first Martin Ingram and Liam Clarke wrote for the Sunday Times in 1999. Within days the Governments legal services were threatening legal action against the paper and informing the Sunday Times that they knew the identity of their source (me). In secret, the government applied to the high court and were awarded an injunction against me revealing any state secrets. Nelson had been compromised by then and the technique of tampering with the bullet is older than my mother in law? So what state secret? Any ideas?

  Adams became aware (and I am unsure how he came about this knowledge), that more than one of his family had been informing on the movement to the FRU, but decided that blood was thicker than water, and those individuals were quietly removed from Belfast for some time without the normal retribution. It is possible that his good friend Freddie Scappaticci was on holiday and the FRU had failed to offer a suitable stand-in during his absence. Maybe Mr Adams could tell us.

  There are plenty within the movement who knew about the Adams’ spy ring so he would find it difficult to deny its existence and still retain any credibility. Although given Adams’ public defence of Freddie Scappaticci his credibility is not really an issue anymore.

  Now either I am being slow here or the Brits missed a perfect opportunity to embarrass the RM. Maybe Adams’ luck is changing?

  Agents like Dennis Donaldson and Freddie Scappaticci and others don’t stay undetected for over twenty years without having either buckets and buckets of luck or a guardian Angel. Now let me be clear, genuine agents who work towards defeating terrorism I have only admiration for. Over 99% of all FRU operations I would defend to the end. The problem that I have is when people - whether they are agents or the State - avoid taking responsibility for that small 1% of operations that are not legal and involve murder. Both McGuinness and Adams along with the British state negotiated together a deal to wipe these offences under the carpet right under everyone’s nose. Its wrong and it certainly is not in the public interest.

  Now either Martin and Gerry are naïve or they are very poor negotiators or they too shop at Marks & Spencers along with Dennis.  If that is the case they should acknowledge the mistakes which occurred upon their watch and step aside forthwith and their followers should give thanks for the luck bestowed on these two venerated leaders of the Provisional Republican Movement!!

  Happy New Year.

Martin Ingram