"I met [him] over a dozen times. Material and vital intelligence were handed over to him. I never thought for one moment he was an informer. People like him were beyond suspicion." IRA members are in shock following the latest revelations, Suzanne Breen reports
This Tyrone IRA member, like many others all over the country, was reeling yesterday at the disclosure that the head of the IRA's internal security was a British army agent.
He is now "horrified" at the information he and others unwittingly gave Stakeknife. He travelled regularly to west Belfast to meet the head of security.
The meetings took place in the Park Centre, a shopping centre off the Falls Road, or a house in Clonard. "He was a small, stocky, swarthy-looking character.
"We never liked meeting him. He wasn't friendly. There was no chat. He just got right down to business. If we found a hidden Brit camera in a field, or a bug in weapon, we would bring it up to him.
"He would be sitting in the shopping centre café with a cup of tea.
"Sometimes [another senior west Belfast IRA member] was with him. Other times, he was on his own. We would leave any surveillance equipment we had found in a car in the car-park for him to collect.
"He would debrief us after we had been interrogated by the cops. We would tell him what we had been asked and what we said. Then he would say, 'Well, what didn't you tell them?' So although he was based in west Belfast, he got to know every detail about the IRA in all areas."
Stakeknife had the authority to suspend IRA units from operating in any area.
"We were always frightened he would close us down. He closed other areas down. We called him and his men 'the Rat Squad'.
"We resented having to come to Belfast and talk to them about Tyrone. But we never thought he was working for the Brits." Stakeknife, who is in his mid-50s, lived in Andersonstown. He seemed "cold, distant and no craic" to the Tyrone activists. West Belfast republicans had a different experience.
"He was friendly to people when he got to know them. He liked a drink. He liked the women," said one member.
Everyone agrees he never talked politics.
"But he was good at his job. He always asked the right questions."
According to former IRA member Anthony McIntyre, who knew him in the 1970s when he lived in the Market area of south Belfast, Stakeknife was interned twice.
"Days before internment happened, he told everyone it was about to happen and warned them not to stay at home.
"Internment was introduced and he was arrested while in bed. It became a big joke locally." Some time later, reportedly after a fight with another IRA member, Stakeknife volunteered his services to the British army.
He rose rapidly through IRA ranks. By the mid-1970s, media reports suggested he was "officer commanding" the Belfast brigade.
He was handled by the army's shadowy Force Research Unit and up to £80,000 a year was paid into a special bank account for him in Gibraltar.
The money remains largely untouched. Back in Belfast, his ordinary lifestyle raised no questions.
However, at least one senior IRA member became suspicious of him in 1988. He told other republicans that Stakeknife, whom he had previously been close to, was "a bastard" and "couldn't be trusted".
A month later, that IRA figure was shot dead by loyalists and a whispering campaign began in republican circles that he had been an informer.
Republicans now admit Stakeknife used his position to remove IRA members who presented a major threat to the security forces.
"If there was an area which was very successful militarily, he could go in on the pretext of an internal investigation, get the names and details of all the volunteers, then pass them on to the Brits," says one source."Either British intelligence could have them killed or Stakeknife could set them up as informers and the IRA would kill them."
Anthony McIntyre says Stakeknife would have been a crucial asset for the intelligence services during the peace process.
"On the basis of his reports, the Brits had a major advantage when negotiating with Sinn Féin. They also had substantial control over IRA operations for a very long time.
Stakeknife would have been able to pass details of dissidents, or potential dissidents, to the Brits who could have them shot, jailed or sidelined.
"This is all a major embarrassment to the Provos. There was no one in place to keep an eye on internal security. It shows huge structural weaknesses. No one was guarding the guards."