The United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 protected an IRA double agent who committed murders during Northern Ireland’s Troubles and later avoided prosecution, a major investigation has found.

The findings are from Operation Kenova, a nearly decade-long police probe into “Stakeknife” – the codename for a senior IRA figure who also worked as an informant for British security services.

He operated during The Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland between Irish republicans seeking a united Ireland and British forces and unionist paramilitaries who wanted to remain in the UK.

About 3,500 people were killed in the violence before it ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Stakeknife led the IRA’s internal security unit, which abducted, interrogated and killed people sus

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