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BRITAIN'S LONG HISTORY OF WORKING WITH THE TERRORISTS THEY CLAIM TO
OPPOSE
CONFESSIONS OF A SECRET AGENT WHO TURNED IRA TERRORIST FOR THE
BRITISH GOVERNMENT
'The army asked me to make bombs for the IRA, told me I had the
Prime Minister's blessing ... then tried to kill me.'
email
print
The army asked me to make bombs for the IRA, told me I had the
Prime Minister's blessing ... then tried to kill me
Exclusive: confessions of a secret agent turned terrorist
By Neil Mackay
KEVIN Fulton is very clear about where the orders were coming from.
'I was told that this was sanctioned right at the top,' he says,
sipping a Pepsi in the bar of a Glasgow hotel. 'I was told
'there'll be no medals for this, and no recognition, but this goes
the whole way to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows what
you are doing.'
This was 1980, and if Margaret Thatcher knew about the activities
of military intelligence agents such as Fulton, then she was also
aware her own military officers were planning to infiltrate British
soldiers as 'moles' into the IRA. These moles were ordered by their
handlers to carry out terrorist crimes in order to keep their cover
within the Provos so they could feed information on other leading
republicans back to security forces.
For almost two years the Sunday Herald has been investigating the
activities of the FRU -- the Force Research Unit, an ultra-secret
wing of British military intelligence. Fulton worked for the FRU
for much of his career as an IRA mole. This unit, which has been
under investigation by Scotland Yard commissioner Sir John Stevens
for more than a decade, was involved in the murder of civilians in
Northern Ireland.
Nicholas Benwell, a detective sergeant formerly attached to the
Stevens Inquiry, says the Scotland Yard team came to one
conclusion: that military intelligence was colluding with
terrorists to help them kill so-called 'legitimate targets' such as
active republicans. FRU handlers passed documents and photographs
to their agents operating within paramilitary groups detailing
targets' movements and the whereabouts of their homes. Pictures
were also handed over to help gunmen identify their victims. But
there was a problem. The targeting was far from professional and
many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were
innocent civilians.
Click to join catapultthepropaganda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catapultthepropaganda/join
In 1989 the FRU passed information to the UDA which the loyalist
gang used to murder the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, who was
shot dead in front of his wife and children. Last week, Prime
Minister Tony Blair pledged that the Government was determined to
uncover the truth about Finucane's murder. The Canadian judge Peter
Cory who was called in by the government to investigate the case is
expected to recommend a public inquiry. The Irish government is
also pressing for an inquiry of its own.
So who was the overall controller of the FRU with its 'licence to
kill' republicans? Until now it seemed that responsibility for the
activities of the FRU rested on the shoulders of one man --
Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the Scottish officer who led the unit and is
now the British military attachŽ to Beijing. A two-part BBC
Panorama programme, concluding tonight, much of it based on the
Sunday Herald's previous investigations, puts Kerr squarely in the
frame.
But if Fulton's claims are correct, then Kerr, soon to be
questioned by the Stevens team, was just one link in a chain of
command which went all the way to the cabinet and the Prime
Minister. As Fulton says: 'Kerr was just following orders. Soldiers
don't make up the rules, they just do as they're told.'
Fulton's story begins in 1979. He was 19, and had just enlisted in
the First Battalion Royal Irish Rangers. Kevin Fulton isn't his
real name, but a pseudonym used to protect his identity since
turning whistle-blower on the activities of the British military,
the RUC and the security services in Ulster's 'dirty war'. His work
for military intelligence has been confirmed by FRU sources.
Fulton's military file quickly found its way onto the desks of the
Intelligence Corps, the regiment which includes the FRU. It made
interesting reading. Here was a Catholic from Newry, in the heart
of a republican strong-hold, who seemed a loyal servant of the
Crown. After only a few weeks in the army, Fulton's staff sergeant
approached him. 'I was told that some guys from military
intelligence wanted to speak to me,' Fulton says. 'They asked me if
I'd like to work for them and I said 'no' as I wanted to remain in
uniform. They told me to think about the offer. They added that I
shouldn't tell anyone about the visit and that if I was asked I
should say they were from a military welfare group. The next time
we met they asked me if I'd go to Newry with them. We looked
through pictures of local characters and I put names to faces,
saying if they had a republican background or not.'
The two FRU officers, one of whom was Scottish, continued to try
and persuade him to work with them. 'They confessed they needed
guys like me -- Catholics from that part of Northern Ireland -- in
order to get inside the Provos,' he says.
Fulton was still unsure, so the FRU asked him if he could help
recruit a Catholic civilian in Newry who might be willing to go
inside the IRA. He did. It was an old friend, who he refers to as
Agent Washington. He and Fulton accompanied FRU members to the army
training camp at Ballykinlar in County Down. 'He was given weapons
training. They taught him how to fire an M16, AK-47s, Remington
wingmaster shotguns, Sterling sub-machine guns and a Browning 9mm,'
says Fulton. 'Remember that this was a civilian going inside the IRA.'
Fulton finally decided he'd work with military intelligence. In
1981, he was officially given a compassionate discharge from his
regiment on the fictitious grounds that his father was seriously
ill. He also received papers claiming he'd been thrown out for
republican sympathies -- a great document to present to the IRA men
he would soon befriend.
From then until 1995, Fulton remained on full army pay as he worked
his way through the ranks of the IRA. He began drinking in
republican bars in Dundalk and socialising with senior IRA
officers, including Patrick Joseph Blair, who the Sunday Herald
named this year as one of the men behind the Omagh bombing. Blair
later went on to became Fulton's 'mentor'.
Not long after his discharge, he told one prominent IRA man that he
wanted to join the organisation. He was taken to a room above a bar
and confronted by a number of men in balaclavas. 'I'd told them
that I'd been kicked out of the army and they started shouting at
me saying 'So you're telling us you'd shoot your f***ing comrades
if you saw them in Crossmaglen?' I said 'Yes, of course'.
'They started calling me a tout (republican slang for an informer)
and saying they were going to shoot me. Eventually, they dragged me
outside. They told me to kneel and say the Act of Contrition. I
heard a huge bang behind me. It was them banging a big bit of wood
on the ground to pretend to be a gunshot. They were testing me.
They told me to come back when I was ready.
'My handlers thought this was great. I offered my services to the
IRA saying I'd help carry out robberies to fund them. This was all
with the knowledge of my handlers in the FRU. I made pals with a
prominent Sinn Fein councillor in Newry who suggested I hijack a
lorry carrying TVs. I knew that this would give me credibility, so
that's what I did. I took a lorry in Belfast with about £100,000 of
TVs inside.'
Fulton was later arrested for the robbery and served a year in the
Crumlin Road prison in Belfast. Because of his republican
connections he was denied the usual privileges of an ODC -- an
ordinary decent criminal. This also gave him additional credibility
with the IRA.
Fulton was released in 1986 and inducted straight into the IRA. 'My
handlers told me to do anything to win their confidence. That's
what I did. My brief was that if I got into a situation where I
couldn't get to my handlers but I had to break the law, I was to
try not to take a life. I was to shoot high or blow up a bomb
prematurely. But that isn't always possible. If I f***ed up all the
time, then the IRA would shoot me. Don't forget I also ran the risk
of getting shot by the army and the police. I mixed explosive and I
helped develop new types of bombs. I moved weapons. If you ask me,
'Did I kill anyone?' then I will say 'no'. But if you ask me if the
materials I handled killed anyone, then I will have to say that
some of the things I helped develop did kill.
'I reiterate, my handlers knew everything I did. I was never told
not to do something that was discussed. How can you pretend to be a
terrorist and not act like one? You can't. You've got to do what
they do. The people I was with were hard-hitters. They did a lot of
murders. If I couldn't be any good to them, then I was no use to
the army either. I had to do what the man standing next to me did.'
More- http://www.sundayherald.com/25646
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<P><FONT style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 18px; COLOR: #993366;
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HISTORY OF WORKING WITH THE TERRORISTS THEY CLAIM TO OPPOSE</FONT></P>
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<P><BR><A href="http://www.sundayherald.com/25646";
target=_blank>CONFESSIONS OF A SECRET AGENT WHO TURNED IRA
TERRORIST FOR THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT<BR><BR>'The army asked me to
make bombs for the IRA, told me I had the Prime Minister's
blessing ... then tried to kill me.'</A> </P>
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<DIV class=headline>The army asked me to make bombs for the IRA,
told me I had the Prime Minister's blessing ... then tried to kill
me</DIV><BR clear=left>
<P> </P>
<DIV class=byline>Exclusive: confessions of a secret agent turned
terrorist<BR>By <A title="More from this author" style="TEXT-
DECORATION: none" href="http://www.sundayherald.com/np/Neil-
Mackay.shtml">Neil Mackay</A></DIV>
<DIV class=abstract></DIV><BR clear=left> <BR>
<DIV class=bodyText>KEVIN Fulton is very clear about where the
orders were coming from. 'I was told that this was sanctioned right
at the top,' he says, sipping a Pepsi in the bar of a Glasgow
hotel. 'I was told 'there'll be no medals for this, and no
recognition, but this goes the whole way to the Prime Minister. The
Prime Minister knows what you are doing.' </DIV>
<DIV class=bodyText> </DIV>
<P class=bodyText>This was 1980, and if Margaret Thatcher knew
about the activities of military intelligence agents such as
Fulton, then she was also aware her own military officers were
planning to infiltrate British soldiers as 'moles' into the IRA.
These moles were ordered by their handlers to carry out terrorist
crimes in order to keep their cover within the Provos so they could
feed information on other leading republicans back to security forces.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>For almost two years the Sunday Herald has been
investigating the activities of the FRU -- the Force Research Unit,
an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence. Fulton
worked for the FRU for much of his career as an IRA mole. This
unit, which has been under investigation by Scotland Yard
commissioner Sir John Stevens for more than a decade, was involved
in the murder of civilians in Northern Ireland.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Nicholas Benwell, a detective sergeant formerly
attached to the Stevens Inquiry, says the Scotland Yard team came
to one conclusion: that military intelligence was colluding with
terrorists to help them kill so-called 'legitimate targets' such as
active republicans. FRU handlers passed documents and photographs
to their agents operating within paramilitary groups detailing
targets' movements and the whereabouts of their homes. Pictures
were also handed over to help gunmen identify their victims. But
there was a problem. The targeting was far from professional and
many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were
innocent civilians.
<P class=bodyText>
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join"><IMG alt="Click here to join catapultthepropaganda"
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catapultthepropaganda</FONT></A> </DIV>
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catapultthepropaganda/join</FONT></A></DIV>
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>In 1989 the FRU passed information to the UDA
which the loyalist gang used to murder the Belfast solicitor Pat
Finucane, who was shot dead in front of his wife and children. Last
week, Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged that the Government was
determined to uncover the truth about Finucane's murder. The
Canadian judge Peter Cory who was called in by the government to
investigate the case is expected to recommend a public inquiry. The
Irish government is also pressing for an inquiry of its own.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>So who was the overall controller of the FRU with
its 'licence to kill' republicans? Until now it seemed that
responsibility for the activities of the FRU rested on the
shoulders of one man -- Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the Scottish officer
who led the unit and is now the British military attachŽ to
Beijing. A two-part BBC Panorama programme, concluding tonight,
much of it based on the Sunday Herald's previous investigations,
puts Kerr squarely in the frame.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>But if Fulton's claims are correct, then Kerr,
soon to be questioned by the Stevens team, was just one link in a
chain of command which went all the way to the cabinet and the
Prime Minister. As Fulton says: 'Kerr was just following orders.
Soldiers don't make up the rules, they just do as they're told.'
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton's story begins in 1979. He was 19, and had
just enlisted in the First Battalion Royal Irish Rangers. Kevin
Fulton isn't his real name, but a pseudonym used to protect his
identity since turning whistle-blower on the activities of the
British military, the RUC and the security services in Ulster's
'dirty war'. His work for military intelligence has been confirmed
by FRU sources.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton's military file quickly found its way onto
the desks of the Intelligence Corps, the regiment which includes
the FRU. It made interesting reading. Here was a Catholic from
Newry, in the heart of a republican strong-hold, who seemed a loyal
servant of the Crown. After only a few weeks in the army, Fulton's
staff sergeant approached him. 'I was told that some guys from
military intelligence wanted to speak to me,' Fulton says. 'They
asked me if I'd like to work for them and I said 'no' as I wanted
to remain in uniform. They told me to think about the offer. They
added that I shouldn't tell anyone about the visit and that if I
was asked I should say they were from a military welfare group. The
next time we met they asked me if I'd go to Newry with them. We
looked through pictures of local characters and I put names to
faces, saying if they had a republican background or not.'
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>The two FRU officers, one of whom was Scottish,
continued to try and persuade him to work with them. 'They
confessed they needed guys like me -- Catholics from that part of
Northern Ireland -- in order to get inside the Provos,' he says.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton was still unsure, so the FRU asked him if
he could help recruit a Catholic civilian in Newry who might be
willing to go inside the IRA. He did. It was an old friend, who he
refers to as Agent Washington. He and Fulton accompanied FRU
members to the army training camp at Ballykinlar in County Down.
'He was given weapons training. They taught him how to fire an M16,
AK-47s, Remington wingmaster shotguns, Sterling sub-machine guns
and a Browning 9mm,' says Fulton. 'Remember that this was a
civilian going inside the IRA.'
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton finally decided he'd work with military
intelligence. In 1981, he was officially given a compassionate
discharge from his regiment on the fictitious grounds that his
father was seriously ill. He also received papers claiming he'd
been thrown out for republican sympathies -- a great document to
present to the IRA men he would soon befriend.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>From then until 1995, Fulton remained on full
army pay as he worked his way through the ranks of the IRA. He
began drinking in republican bars in Dundalk and socialising with
senior IRA officers, including Patrick Joseph Blair, who the Sunday
Herald named this year as one of the men behind the Omagh bombing.
Blair later went on to became Fulton's 'mentor'.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Not long after his discharge, he told one
prominent IRA man that he wanted to join the organisation. He was
taken to a room above a bar and confronted by a number of men in
balaclavas. 'I'd told them that I'd been kicked out of the army and
they started shouting at me saying 'So you're telling us you'd
shoot your f***ing comrades if you saw them in Crossmaglen?' I said
'Yes, of course'.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>'They started calling me a tout (republican slang
for an informer) and saying they were going to shoot me.
Eventually, they dragged me outside. They told me to kneel and say
the Act of Contrition. I heard a huge bang behind me. It was them
banging a big bit of wood on the ground to pretend to be a gunshot.
They were testing me. They told me to come back when I was ready.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>'My handlers thought this was great. I offered my
services to the IRA saying I'd help carry out robberies to fund
them. This was all with the knowledge of my handlers in the FRU. I
made pals with a prominent Sinn Fein councillor in Newry who
suggested I hijack a lorry carrying TVs. I knew that this would
give me credibility, so that's what I did. I took a lorry in
Belfast with about £100,000 of TVs inside.'
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton was later arrested for the robbery and
served a year in the Crumlin Road prison in Belfast. Because of his
republican connections he was denied the usual privileges of an ODC
-- an ordinary decent criminal. This also gave him additional
credibility with the IRA.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>Fulton was released in 1986 and inducted straight
into the IRA. 'My handlers told me to do anything to win their
confidence. That's what I did. My brief was that if I got into a
situation where I couldn't get to my handlers but I had to break
the law, I was to try not to take a life. I was to shoot high or
blow up a bomb prematurely. But that isn't always possible. If I
f***ed up all the time, then the IRA would shoot me. Don't forget I
also ran the risk of getting shot by the army and the police. I
mixed explosive and I helped develop new types of bombs. I moved
weapons. If you ask me, 'Did I kill anyone?' then I will say 'no'.
But if you ask me if the materials I handled killed anyone, then I
will have to say that some of the things I helped develop did kill.
<P class=bodyText>
<P class=bodyText>'I reiterate, my handlers knew everything I did.
I was never told not to do something that was discussed. How can
you pretend to be a terrorist and not act like one? You can't.
You've got to do what they do. The people I was with were hard-
hitters. They did a lot of murders. If I couldn't be any good to
them, then I was no use to the army either. I had to do what the
man standing next to me did.'</P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></
TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV>
<DIV>More- <A href="http://www.sundayherald.com/25646";>http://
www.sundayherald.com/25646</A></DIV></
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screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
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That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
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