Michelle O’Neill aide accused of being part of Stakeknife’s IRA death squad

A top adviser to Northern Ireland’s new First Minister has been accused of being part of the IRA death squad linked to the notorious double agent Stakeknife.

Sean Mag Uidhir, Michelle O’Neill’s Sinn Fein spin doctor, was interviewed under caution by the investigation into Stakeknife, the British Army’s top spy within the Provisional IRA.

Mag Uidhir, 66, who changed his name to the Gaelic form of Maguire several years ago, is widely known to have been a senior member of the IRA in the Ardoyne district of Belfast during The Troubles.

At one time, he was allegedly part of the terror group’s internal security unit, which tortured and murdered alleged informers and was known as the “Nutting Squad” because of its method of killing victims with a shot to the head.

Also a member of the unit was Stakeknife, who is widely believed to have been Freddie Scappaticci, a bricklayer from west Belfast who died last year. While carrying out killings for the IRA, he was passing intelligence to the British Army’s shadowy Force Research Unit.

Stakeknife was the subject of Operation Kenova, a £40 million investigation that lasted for seven years.

Mag Uidhir has been accused of acting for the Nutting Squad at an infamous abduction linked to Stakeknife in 1990, and was interviewed by Operation Kenova in November 2018.

The unit has been linked to at least 101 murders and abductions, while Kenova’s interim report, published in March, found Stakeknife cost more lives than he saved through intelligence. It linked him to 14 murders and 15 abductions.

Northern Irish politicians have accused Ms O’Neill of hypocrisy over her links to Mag Uidhir. Sammy Wilson, a Democratic Unionist Party MP, told The Telegraph: “For someone who has said she wants to be inclusive, she wants to try and reach across the divide, she wants to be a First Minister for all, she is bound to know that having somebody like that as a communications officer is going to be provocative.

“Even among the nationalist community there is great anger about the way in which people from Republican nationalist backgrounds were treated by the Nutting Squad and the misery that brought to the community too.

“Michelle O’Neill must stop being a hypocrite in this way by saying on the one hand she wants to reach out and be the First Minister for everybody while at the same time employing people who she knows are provocative.”

Mag Uidhir watched his boss, Ms O’Neill, give a press conference with Mary Lou McDonald as the Northern Irish Assembly was restored in February.

Ms O’Neill became the first nationalist politician to become First Minister of Northern Ireland in the historic power-sharing agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party.

Mag Uidhir is said to be hugely protective of O’Neill and has played a key role in her election campaigns.

Born in 1957, he grew up in Belfast, attending St Malachy’s College from 1968 to 1975, according to his social media profiles.

A year after leaving school, in 1976, he was convicted of conspiracy to murder two policemen and given a 16-year sentence, of which he served eight.

According to court documents, he also has a conviction for possession of firearms and ammunition and was arrested in 1986 after information indicated he was a member of the Provisional IRA and “involved in certain specific terrorist crimes in the North Belfast area”.

He was said to be “second in command” of an IRA unit involved in the abduction of Sandy Lynch, a terrorist turned informant to the British security forces, who was targeted for his apparent treachery in 1990.

During the 1991 trial of the republicans accused of the kidnapping, the court was told that Mag Uidhir was number two to Kevin Mulgrew, another IRA member, according to reports from the time.

The Crown said that Lynch would “say he worked under the command of Kevin Mulgrew [an IRA member] and the second-in-command was Sean Maguire”.

John Creaney, QC, prosecuting, said Lynch had been involved for “quite some time” in a provisional IRA intelligence gathering unit and had served time for terrorist offences.

“Lynch was also informing for the Royal Ulster Constabulary, both on his activities and those of the IRA he was privy to,” the prosecutor said.

As part of his court deposition, Lynch, who was allegedly lured by Mag Uidhir to the house where he was kidnapped, said that he was taunted for hours by his interrogators. He made detailed references to Scappaticci, who he said led the interrogation and threatened to “skin me alive”.

Gerard Hodgins, a former IRA member, was present but had his conviction for the abduction quashed amid questions over the involvement of security forces.

He told The Telegraph that Mag Uidhir had signalled the informant would be killed. “He made a pistol gesture to his head and nodded back to the room where Sandy was being held, indicating to me, I think, that he believed Sandy deserved to be nutted,” he said.

He said he told Operation Kenova about Mag Uidhir’s involvement because he believed the former IRA member was himself an informer. Mag Uidhir furiously denied this claim when it was first made in press reports in 2003.

Hodgins said Mag Uidhir’s presence at the abduction was “proof of how senior he was” within the unit.

“His actual title didn’t affect our thinking, we just knew from gossip he was head of this, or second in command of that,” he said. “On the ground, we just knew who was who and how senior they were, almost with it not needing to be said.”

He added: “Everyone knows he was there, his name is right throughout the court papers. Sandy’s testimony from the box puts him there and says that’s how he got to the house, Sean drove him. Sean was there as part of the ISU, he was interrogating Sandy.”

Mag Uidhir, who is father to several children, left for the Republic of Ireland following the Lynch kidnap but later returned.

Sinn Fein highly secretive

After the peace process and Good Friday Agreement, he went on to become the editor of the North Belfast News before joining the Sinn Fein media team.

The party is highly secretive and does not publish full details of its officials but he is listed as an author on the Sinn Fein website.

He has been described by the Sinn Fein-run newspaper An Phoblacht as the party’s “media chief” and has frequently been seen arranging press conferences for Ms O’Neill at Stormont.

Mag Uidhir was photographed at the funeral of Martin McGuinness in 2017 as his coffin was carried by the new First Minister, along with Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein in Ireland, and Gerry Adams.

He also accompanied Ms O’Neill when she visited Manchester in 2017 and signed a book of condolence for the victims of the Arena terror attack.

Jon Boutcher, the author of the Operation Kenova report and now the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said in his interim report that the activities of the Provisional IRA he examined were the “most shameful and evil I have encountered”.

Police chief denounced ‘shameful and evil’ activities

He said that while there were failings by British security forces over Stakeknife, it was the Provisional IRA’s leadership “that commissioned and sanctioned the activities that its ISU carried out”.

Mr Boutcher said the ISU was “responsible for torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and murder, including of children, vulnerable adults, those with learning difficulties and those who were entirely innocent of the claims made against them”.

Mr Wilson, the DUP MP, said: “I don’t think anyone with that kind of record should be in a public position and she [Ms O’Neill] really has to explain how this is moving away from the past if she is employing people who have a known terrorist background.

“If it was the other way round and the deputy First Minister had employed a known loyalist terrorist, Sinn Fein would have screamed and howled at it.

“It also shows that there still is that connection between Sinn Fein and people who formerly were involved in overt terrorist activity. It’s not the image any devolved administration needs.”

Baroness Hoey, the Northern Irish politician and former Labour MP, said: “This shows the dark secrets of some now working for Sinn Fein. This must be looked into and Sinn Fein need to be transparent about who they are employing if Michelle O’Neill is serious about being a First Minister for all.”

Mag Uidhir declined the opportunity to apologise for his actions as an IRA terrorist, and denied taking part in the abduction of Lynch.

In a statement, his solicitor said: “My client, Sean Mag Uidhir, has always rejected any allegation that he was involved in the unlawful imprisonment and conspiracy to murder Alexander [Sandy] Lynch in 1990 and has never been charged with any offence in relation to this.

“Mr Mag Uidhir has worked as a journalist and newspaper editor, is now employed as a Sinn Fein press officer and has been a vocal and consistent advocate of reconciliation and the peace process.”

Sinn Fein and the Northern Ireland Executive did not respond to requests for comment.