TOP-SECRET-Smithwick tribunal told spymasters could have averted double murder

A written statement that claims up to a quarter of the IRA gang involved in the killing of two top Ulster policemen were British agents has been handed to a tribunal investigating collusion between terrorists and the security forces during the Northern Ireland Troubles.

The document handed to the Smithwick tribunal by a former British military intelligence officer, shines new light on Ulster’s covert war — and raises concerns that the murder of Superintendent Bob Buchanan and Chief Superintendent Harry Breen in March 1989 could have been prevented.

The material, given to the tribunal by Ian Hurst, a former member of the force research unit (FRU), claims that one of Britain’s most important agents in the IRA, codenamed Stakeknife, was aware of the murder plot, prompting accusations that in turn his spy bosses failed to inform either the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the Garda Síochána about it.

In his 24-page statement, passed to the tribunal headed by Judge Peter Smithwick in June, Hurst claims that Stakeknife — FRU informer Freddie Scappaticci — played a key role in intelligence-gathering that led to the double murder. Yet Scappaticci, the then head of the IRA’s spy-catching unit, was in fact a top British agent in the Provisionals. …

Another FRU agent and one-time IRA member known as Kevin Fulton has claimed state agents involved in the ambush killed the two police officers to prevent them being handed over to a Provisional interrogation unit, with the danger of them leaking the names of informants under torture.

The Guardian has learned that the Smithwick tribunal has asked Hurst to give his evidence in private. But Hurst is understood to insist that he will only speak in public about the Breen-Buchanan double murder and the role of state agents in the IRA.

It is understood Hurst may be considering legal action to challenge the tribunal’s decision. He has an Irish passport, holds Irish citizenship due to marriage and could argue that the ruling to force him to give evidence in camera is a breach of the Republic’s constitution and his right to give evidence openly to a legally constituted inquiry.