The will of a man believed to be the IRA agent known as Stakeknife will not be made public, the High Court has ruled.
Freddie Scappaticci was believed to be Britain’s top agent inside the IRA. The west Belfast man had always denied the claims before his death aged 77 in 2023.
Sir Julian Flaux ordered on Monday that Scappaticci's will should be sealed for 70 years.
The judge said there was nothing in the will that could be of public interest. He added that this was the first time, except for members of the royal family, where a court has ordered that a will not be made open to public inspection in the way the document would usually be.
He said: “There is nothing in the will, which is in fairly standard form, which could conceivably be of interest to the public or the media.”
The court heard that a man named Michael Johnson was prepared to represent Scappaticci’s interests provided that the will was sealed.
Sir Julian said that there was “the need to protect (Mr Johnson) and those named in the will from the real risk of serious physical harm or even death because they might be thought to be guilty by association” with Scappaticci.
He said: “The real risk to his life and wellbeing which the deceased faced in his lifetime is amply demonstrated.”
He added: “Publication of the will would be both undesirable and inappropriate.”
In his 18-page ruling, Sir Julian said that Scappaticci was alleged to have been a leading member of the Provisional IRA and part of the “Nutting Squad” from around 1980 until the mid-1990s, which interrogated suspected informers during the Troubles.
In 2003, media reports claimed that Scappaticci had spied on the IRA for the British government, and that while working for both organisations, “was responsible for the torture and murder of dozens of alleged IRA informers”.
Scappaticci always denied the claim but failed in a legal bid to force the British government to publicly state that he was not Stakeknife, forcing him to move to England in 2003.
“He could not have remained in Northern Ireland, as he could have been killed by one side or the other," Sir Julian said.
“Even after he moved to England and changed his name, he continued to receive death threats.
“Such was their nature that he had to relocate at short notice several times over the years.”
(PA) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
