The IRA was last night (Saturday)
planning to raid one of its own hidden dumps and shift its
secrets to a new location in the Republic.
The move came after it emerged that security forces may have
located and could be set to swoop on a cache of tapes and documents
hidden close to the border.
It contains information which links the republican group's infamous
Internal Security Unit to a series of gruesome murders stretching back over
a
25-year period.
Recordings include gruesome interrogations led by Freddie 'Stakeknife'
Scappaticci.
The contents of the dump would also open up new information to the Stevens
inquiry team who recently took over the Freddie Scappaticci investigation
from the PSNI and is now also investigating Branch agent Joe Haughey.
The IRA standing orders required its Internal Security Unit to make audio
recordings of the interrogation of suspected police agents and informants.
Members of the unit also made hand written notes and recorded other
material likely to be of use to IRA intelligence officers in the locating
and targeting of security force members.
A number of the audio recordings are known to have been made at houses just
inside the Irish Republic.
Two houses used by the IRA's Internal Security Unit are on the outskirts of
the Co Louth village of Omeath. Another house is believed to be just across
the border in Co Monaghan.
It is understood top Provos John Joe Magee and Freddie Scappaticci were
just two of the IRA team that took part in the interrogations.
IRA interrogation of suspects could last for several days.
Each night the used audio tapes and documents were taken and handed over to
a top Provo who lived close to the Co Armagh village of Cullaville.
The tapes were then subjected to a stress analysis test on a machine the
IRA had purchased in America. This machine was similar to a Lie Detector
and checked the levels of stress in the voice of the suspected informer.
Once tested the results were sent back to the Internal Security Unit along
with fresh tapes for the next day's interrogation session.
The analysed tapes were then sealed and taken to the IRA dump and stored.
Now security sources say a concentrated effort has been put in to locating
the dumps and a number of locations have been targeted for investigation.
However, one senior IRA figure was last night understood to be urging the
organisation to clear-out the stash and get all the information moved.
A source close to him told us: "It wouldn't be hard for anyone to work out
who was talking on the audio tapes.
"Both Magee and Scappaticci have distinctive voices. The tapes prove
conclusively army agent Scappaticci was involved in murder."
The source went on to say that the IRA dump also contained signed
confessions of informers who were executed by members of the Internal
Security Unit.
They said condemned men were forced to sign confessions admitting they were
informants before being shot in the head and their bodies dumped on a
border road.
The confessions of FRU agents, Gregory Burns, John Dignam and Aiden Starrs
are believed to be amongst the documents stored in the IRA dump.
The three men were kidnapped and tortured by the IRA in 1992. Their bodies
were discovered within a 10-mile radius on the south Armagh border.
All three bodies were naked and they had been shot twice in the heads.
Admitting the executions the IRA said all three men had been working for
the security forces. Edited tapes of their confessions were later given to
the BBC.
Other items include tape recording of the interrogation of Co Louth farmer,
Thomas Oliver.
The father-of-seven, 37, from Riverstown, Co Louth was abducted and shot
by the IRA in July 1991. The IRA claimed he had been passing information to
Garda in Dundalk.
William Frazer, spokesman for victims' group FAIR, urged security services
on both sides of the border to locate the IRA dump before the IRA does.
"If the IRA get there first, the recordings will never see the light of day
again," he said.
