Peter Keeley
Peter Keeley is, according to journalist Henry McDonald, the real name of the man often referred to by the pseudonym Kevin Fulton, an agent who infiltrated the IRA in the 1970s for the Force Research Unit (FRU).[1]
Republican Gerard Bradley said in June 2004 that he had known Keeley in the early 1990s:
- “I was first introduced to Keeley in the middle of 1993 by Joe Haughey. Keeley made himself out to be someone who could help the republican movement with cars, money, phones – a real wheeler-dealer, a Del Boy. He also tried to play up his connections and claimed he could get us anything we wanted.[2]
Fulton has claimed that he was interrogated by another FRU informer in the IRA, Freddie Scappaticci, after exposing an operation to his handlers:
- Yesterday, Mr Fulton claimed he foiled the IRA's attempt to murder a senior policeman, Derek Martindale, in 1994 by reporting the terrorists' plans to his handlers so that they were arrested on their way to shoot the officer in east Belfast.
- Mr Scappaticci was then deputy head of the Provisionals' feared internal security unit, the infamous Nutting Squad, charged with sniffing out and executing informers.[3]
Fulton has suggested that his handlers were prepared to sacrifice him to protect Scappaticci's cover.
- "He let us go but when they told me to come back a third time, I knew that if I went I would never come back alive. I didn't know he was Stakeknife but I am sure my handlers knew. They said 'Go, you'll be all right. We have the inside track.' But I went awol. I knew if I went I would never have returned alive.[4]
Gerard Bradley challenged Fulton's account of the Martindale operation:
- “He had no involvement in that operation whatsoever. He’s running around saying he saved Martindale, yet his own published statement on the incident actually calls that into question.
- “I thought of him as a bit of a strange bloke – but someone who could be used a bit. About three weeks before the attack – which none of the team involved in even knew about until the actual day – I had asked Keeley to get me a mobile phone.
- “That was the phone I had in my possession in the house in the New Lodge when we were arrested after the team over in Belmont were scooped.”[5]
In August 2003, Fulton accused the editor of the North Belfast News, Seán Mag Uidhir, of being a British agent. In response Sinn Féin vice-president Pat Doherty accused Fulton of being part of a "British securocrat strategy of misinformation aimed at damaging the republican constituency and undermining the peace process."[6]
Fulton was detained in November 2006 and questioned about the murders of Eoin Morley and Ranger Cyril Smith (Ranger), before being released without charge.[7]
Omagh Bomb
Fulton has claimed that the RUC and Garda Special Branch failed to act on a tip-off that could have prevented the Omagh Bomb.[8]
Affiliations
Contact
- Website: http://www.kevinfulton.com/
- Youtube channel kfultonuk
External Resources
- BBC, "Kevin Fulton", Hardtalk, 10 April 2006.
- Paul Larkin, The real importance of Smithwick Tribunal is its outing of one News Int's key informants in Ireland, Cic Saor, 19 December 2013.
Notes
- ↑ Henry McDonald, Revealed: five British spies inside IRA, The Observer, 18 May 2003.
- ↑ Fulton Exposed, Andersonstown News, 3 June 2004, via Saoirse32 blog.
- ↑ Rosie Cowan, Ex-agent reports Stakeknife to police, The Guardian, 16 May 2003.
- ↑ Rosie Cowan, Ex-agent reports Stakeknife to police, The Guardian, 16 May 2003.
- ↑ Fulton Exposed, Andersonstown News, 3 June 2004, via Saoirse32 blog.
- ↑ Laura Friel, Belfast journalist rejects 'spy' claim, An Phoblacht, 7 August 2003.
- ↑ Former spy released without charge, RTE News, 6 November 2006.
- ↑ Henry McDonald, Revealed: five British spies inside IRA, The Observer, 18 May 2003.
