The bound and bloodied body of Frank Hegarty dumped on a lonely border road with bullets in his head
SINN Fein chief Martin McGuinness is to be questioned over allegations he lured Derry Provo Frank Hegarty into the hands of an IRA execution squad.
The Police Ombudsman has been investigating over a number of years now the role of State agents in the murder of ‘informants’ inside the IRA.
And Derry Daily understands that one of those agents it has been closely looking at is the current Deputy First Ministetr Martin McGuinness.
McGuinness worked as a high ranking agent inside the IRA for the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, from the mid 1970s.
He was codenamed ‘J11B’ and regularly met his MI6 handlers at a car park on the outskirts of Derry.
Investigators believe he was was pivotal in convincing Frank Hegarty that it was safe for him to come home from his bolthole in England.
They believe he should be questioned by detectives about the Hegarty murder.
McGuinness denies this saying he never murdered anyone. He also denies being a British intelligence agent.
The PSNI has now been asked by the Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory QC to investigate the Ombudman’s revelations.
Chief Constable George Hamilton is expected to invite outsider police forces in England, Wales and Scotland to investigate the claims.
The probe would involve 50 detectives, take five years to complete and cost between £12m-£15m.
Frank Hegarty was abducted in Buncrana in May 1986 and taken to a Provo ‘interrogation house’ along the border agreeing to meet with IRA figures.
There he was interrogated by the British Army’s high rank agent Stakeknife – Freddie Scappaticci – and then executed, shot four times in the back of his head for confessing to be working for the Force Research Unit.
His brutal murder featured on a BBC Spotlight programme last night as it is now one of up to FIFTY murders to be re-investigated over allegations of collusion between British security services and paramilitary agents.
Hegarty was recruited in 1979 and slowly moved up the ranks of the IRA until he was put into the position of ‘quartermaster’ – the man responsible for all guns, explosives and ammunition in Northern Command.
His son Ryan, who was only five when his dad was murdered, blames the British Army run Force Research Unit for his father’s death.
He believes that after tipping off his FRU handlers about a massive arms shipment in Donegal that had just come in from Libya, his dad became a sacrificial lamb to protect and bolster the Anglo Irish Agreement.
Ryan told reporter Darragh McIntyre: “British Intelligence dug his grave and the IRA put him into.”
He believes McGuinness should be quizzed by police about his father’s murder.
For almost 30 years, the Hegarty family have held nothing but contempt for Martin McGuinness
They say that McGuinness had become a regular visitor to the family home, almost on a daily basis to speak to his mum Rose.
Sometimes, they said, he would kneel at her feet, promising Rose Hegarty that if ‘Frankie’ came home everything would be sorted.
On the basis of those assurances, Frank Hegarty returned from England and met his son one last time at a disused fort in Burt, Co Donegal.
He told the programme he remembers that day well: his dad was ‘disguised’ – he was wearing sunglasses, a flat cap and a brown leather jacket.
It was the last time he saw his father alive.
Days later, the IRA executed him and dumped his bloodied and bound body on a lonely country road along the Tyrone/Donegal border.
The assurances from Martin McGuinness to his mum Rose were, say the family, a tissue of lies.
Rose Hegarty said McGuinness was an “evil, evil man” for luring his son back to be murdered by the IRA
Asked in a 1993 interview if she held Martin McGuinness responsible for her son’s death, Rose Hegarty said simply: ‘Well nobody else could be.’
But she told the Cook Report that police hadn’t been told of Martin McGuinness’s suspected involvement, saying: ‘As you know yourself people are afraid, everyone is afraid.’
‘I feel very bitter now and full of regrets that I ever let him in the door, that I ever let him come on over, such an evil man.
“He said to me there’s nothing going to happen to Frank, I will bring him back. He assured me nothing was going to happen to him. He’s an evil man, evil is too good a word for him. I just hate him, hate him, hate him like poison.
‘During the time of Frankie’s absence, Martin McGuinness visited my home very frequently, practically every other day, he always urged me to get him (Frankie) to come home, that things could be sorted out.
‘He gave me an absolute guarantee that nothing would ever happen to Frankie. I never saw or spoke to Martin McGuinness again.
“My trust was betrayed.’’
McGuinness’s invovlement is supported by a secretly recording of Freddie Scappaticci talking to researchers on the Cook Report.
He told a researcher that he knew all about the case as Hegarty ringing home to talk to his mother, that he missed his partner Dorothy Robb and wanted to return.
Said Scappaticci: “So he kept phoning back, so McGuinness got on the phone and says look, you’ll be okay, blah, blah… convinced him and convinced the mother, right.
“He then came home and McGuinness was the instrument of him being taken away and shot.”
Tags: