Margaret Walshaw
Margaret Walshaw is a former agent handler in the British Army's Force Research Unit and a central figure in the Stevens Inquiry's investigation into collusion in Northern Ireland.[1]
Force Research Unit
According to The Times, Walshaw handled Brian Nelson between 1986 and 1990.[2]
Sunday People journalist Greg Harkin claimed in 2003 that Walshaw was responsible for setting up the 1987 murder of Francisco Notorantonio:
- The pensioner was set up for a Brian Nelson UDA hit squad as a replacement target for another FRU operative, the IRA agent Stakeknife.[3]
Former BBC Spotlight journalist Paul Larkin quotes the following account by Brian Nelson of how he was told by the FRU of the 1987 loyalist arms raid which obtained the weapons used to kill Pat Finucane:
- Mags informed me that she had been instructed by the boss to tell me that a substantial amount of weapons had been stolen from an armoury at palace barracks, the police and he strongly suspected the UDA to have been involved... She told me that the person who had taken the weapons was a UDR sergeant called Fletcher who lived in the Woodvale area, he was known to frequent drinking clubs in that area that were also used by Eric McKee (the UFF commander) and the boss reckoned Eric McKee has a hand in it somewhere.[4]
According to Larkin 'Mags' refers to Walshaw, and 'the boss' to Gordon Kerr.[5]
Larkin also quotes Nelson as stating that Walshaw argued "until four in the morning" that a UFF operation targeting republican Harold Maynes should be allowed to go ahead with Nelson's participation. Other intelligence officers felt the risk to Nelson was too great.[6]
Walshaw was awarded the British Empire Medal at Buckingham Palace two weeks after Nelson was imprisoned in 1992.[7]
Exposure
Walshaw was named as Brian Nelson's handler in an anonymous article on the US intelligence website Cryptome in February 2001.[8]
Cryptome's owner claimed a few days later that the site's ISP had given the British government access to its log files as part of the campaign to suppress Walshaw's name.[9]
Also in February 2001, the Ministry of Defence secured an injunction against the Sunday Herald preventing the paper from naming Walshaw and Kerr.[10]
Walshaw was named by the Sinn Féin newspaper An Phoblacht in June 2001.[11]
In June 2002, the BBC's Panorama named Walshaw as Brian Nelson's handler, prompting a rebuke from the Ministry of Defence:
- "We understood that they would not name her. We regret the fact that they have. We feel let down," said an MoD spokesman.[12]
Journalist Liam Clarke subsequently wrote that the Sunday Times had been threatened for disclosing information that had been broadcast by Panorama:
- We were forbidden to reveal the identity of Sgt Margaret Walshaw, a FRU officer who was interviewed by police about allegations of collusion. This despite the fact that her name had already appeared in An Phoblacht, a Sinn Fein newspaper, and that she had, in any case, changed it.[13]
Sir John Stevens published a report on collusion in April 2003, which did not name FRU members in order to protect future prosecutions. The Times reported that a file on Walshaw was thought to have been sent to Sir Alasdair Fraser, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland.[14]
Chicksands
In May 2003, the The Times reported that Walshaw, by now a Captain, was involved in training army intelligence recruits at Chicksands. The paper speculated that Walshaw could be among the officers debriefing Freddie Scappaticci at Chicksands after his exposure as an FRU agent a few days previously.[15]
External Resources
- Namebase Walshaw Margaret
Notes
- ↑ David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor, Minister gagged media to guard dirty secret, The Guardian, 13 May 2003.
- ↑ David Lister and Ian Cobain, Stakeknife is 'under guard at old Home Counties airbase' , The Times, 13 May 1983.
- ↑ Greg Harkin, Brigadier could be quizzed on deaths, Sunday People, 20 April 2003.
- ↑ Paul Larkin, A Very British Jihad: Collusion, Conspiracy & Cover-up in Northern Ireland, Beyond the Pale, 2004, p.40.
- ↑ Paul Larkin, A Very British Jihad: Collusion, Conspiracy & Cover-up in Northern Ireland, Beyond the Pale, 2004, p.40.
- ↑ Paul Larkin, A Very British Jihad: Collusion, Conspiracy & Cover-up in Northern Ireland, Beyond the Pale, 2004, p.301.
- ↑ Barry McCaffrey, The secrets that died with Brian Nelson THE DEATH OF BRITISH ARMY AGENT 6137 , Irish News, 14 April 2007.
- ↑ ENQUIRY : THE KILLING YEARS IN IRELAND, Cryptome, 3 February 2001.
- ↑ ENQUIRY : THE KILLING YEARS IN IRELAND, Cryptome, 9 February 2001.
- ↑ David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor, Minister gagged media to guard dirty secret, The Guardian, 13 May 2003.
- ↑ Laura Friel, MoD blocks Stevens probe, An Phoblacht, 14 June 2001.
- ↑ Loony Hoon in a new bid to gag, The Sunday People, 23 June 2002.
- ↑ Liam Clarke, Slamming the door on this shameful cover-up, The Sunday Times, 23 June 2002.
- ↑ David Lister, Names left out to protect future court proceedings, The Times, 18 April 2003.
- ↑ David Lister and Ian Cobain, Stakeknife is 'under guard at old Home Counties airbase' , The Times, 13 May 2003.
