'Stakeknife' trial cover-up claim

Mr Scappaticci has vehemently denied he was "Stakeknife"

The secret role of alleged British intelligence agent Freddie Scappaticci was withheld during the trial of a Sinn Fein member, it is claimed.

A new book says Police Special Branch asked prosecutors not to give out details of the mole Stakeknife.

The request was allowed in 1991 before Sinn Fein member Danny Morrison was jailed for eight years.

The claims are made in Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents co-written by a former intelligence officer.

The officer is known as Martin Ingram who operated with the Army's anti-terrorist Force Research Unit in Northern Ireland for almost 10 years.

Bluffed his way out

Mr Scappaticci, 59, it is claimed, was second in command of the IRA's internal security unit who once interrogated and threatened to kill a security force informer at a house in west Belfast.

At the time in January 1990, Morrison was Sinn Fein's director of publicity, and was later jailed for his part in falsely imprisoning the man Mr Scappaticci questioned.

It is claimed Mr Scappaticci tipped off military intelligence and had left the house before it was surrounded by police and troops.

Mr Scappaticci, who was never charged, has categorically denied being the agent, known as Stakeknife.

Elaborate plan

But the book describes how the then RUC Special Branch and M15 concealed his identity as part of a plan to seize Morrison.

The CID submitted its own file to the director of public prosecutions, but was unaware of separate documentation supplied by police and military intelligence who urged that Mr Scappaticci's role as an agent be kept secret.

Morrison was jailed in May 1991 for falsely imprisoning Sandy Lynch from Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, at a house in west Belfast.

Mr Lynch, a British agent, was unaware that his chief interrogator Mr Scappaticci was one as well and that his detention was part of an elaborate plan to trap Morrison, the book says.

Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents in Ireland, co-written by journalist Greg Harkin, is published on Wednesday.