‘Murder admissions’ of double agent to be ignored

Victims’ families have reacted with anger after it emerged that a former British double agent in the IRA who allegedly admitted to murder while giving training presentations to members of the Crown Forces will not be prosecuted.

The case had emerged during a seven-year investigation into the activities of the British spy known as Stakeknife. A criminal file was passed to the North’s prosecution service.

The identity of the agent remains a British state secret, but it is reported to be ‘Kevin Fulton’, whose real name is Peter Keeley (pictured).

Born in Newry in 1960, he was a soldier in the Royal Irish regiment who was recruited in about 1979 by the British Army Intelligence’s ‘Force Research Unit’.

Keeley, now resettled to a secret location, worked undercover inside the IRA from 1981, first for the British Army’s Force Research Unit then in for RUC Special Branch and MI5. He is believed to have been still advising British ‘intelligence’ services as recently as last year.

The £40m ‘Operation Kenova’ police investigation probed allegations that the unnamed agent admitted to committing murders while participating in courses for spy handlers.

The training presentations included alleged admissions to serious criminal offences, including murder, but the agent was not investigated or charged for any crime.

Following the Kenova report, a file on the alleged admissions has now been dropped. A spokesperson for the North’s prosecution service said they had decided against charges with regard to the case on “evidential grounds”.

Kevin Winters, who represents the families of victims affected by the activities of British double agents, said the failure to prosecute the agent was “seismic in significance”.

Mr Winters is seeking a judicial review of the prosecution service decision not to prosecute anyone over the 1983 murder of Anthony Braniff, 22, who was falsely accused by British double agents of being an informer before being killed.

He said: “What does it say about the state of our criminal justice system when something so obviously criminal isn’t the subject of a major prosecution and I include within that the security forces attendees listening to such admissions? It is beyond farcical and plumbs new depths of injustice.

“Having just learned of this news we ought to be shocked but, to be blunt, we aren’t. The latest decision is entirely consistent with all other similar decision-making to date.”

Urgent Appeal