Stevens turns focus on secret agent within IRA

One of Britain's top secret agents within the IRA – codenamed Stakeknife – is to be questioned by detectives from the Stevens police inquiry.

The identity of Stakeknife is a closely guarded secret – one rumour is that he is a senior member of Sinn Fein – and he is considered one of the Army's most important intelligence sources on republican terrorists.

The Stevens inquiry has uncovered allegations that the agent is responsible for a number of murders and that several people have been killed to protect his identity.

Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is known to have contacted the secret agent this year through a third party and is prepared to cause a major rift with the Army by questioning him in the next few months.

In the past the Army has been prepared to protect its agent at all costs. The headquarters of the covert Force Research Unit (FRU), concentrated much of its attention on the analysis of the information he provided.

When, in 1987, Stakeknife was targeted by members of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Freedom Fighters, who had no idea he was a double agent, the FRU is alleged to have guided the loyalists away from him to another man, Francisco Notarantonio, who was allegedly "sacrificed" to protect their man. Mr Notarantonio, 66, an IRA member in the 1940s who had not been actively involved for many years, was shot dead as he lay in bed.