BRITAIN’S most important agent inside the IRA was in hiding last night after his identity and details of his 25-year career as a ruthless executioner was exposed by newspapers in Dublin and Belfast.

The agent known as Stakeknife, whose intelligence was so significant that it was processed by a dedicated team and read at Cabinet level, was named yesterday as Alfredo “Freddie” Scappaticci. Security officials said that he was in a secret safe house and may have plastic surgery to help to create a new identity. He was said, however, to have been extremely reluctant to leave Northern Ireland, where he has a home in Andersonstown, Belfast.

The bricklayer son of an Italian immigrant who joined the Provisionals in the early 1970s, Mr Scappaticci rose through the IRA’s ranks to become a trusted friend of Gerry Adams and deputy head of the infamous “Nutting Squad”, which tortured and killed suspected informers.

Embarrassingly for the Government, “Stakeknife” was allegedly involved in the killing of fellow informers, raising questions about how much Downing Street knew about the man once described as the “jewel” in Britain’s intelligence crown in Northern Ireland. He was allegedly the British mole who helped to set up the three IRA volunteers killed by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988, and his information was so valuable that £80,000 a year was paid directly into a secret Gibraltar bank account that has never been touched.

Mr Scappaticci is believed to have joined the IRA along with his brother Umberto in the early 1970s after his family settled in Belfast and Banbridge, Co Down. He is understood to have become friendly with Mr Adams when they were interned together in the mid-1970s. His exposure as a British agent will be highly embarrassing for the Sinn Fein leader and the party declined to comment last night.

The fact that one of the IRA’s most trusted figures was a double agent will cause fury among republican circles and do massive damage to IRA morale at a critical stage in the peace process.

It also raises fresh questions about the full extent of Britain’s penetration of the IRA and its activities during the “dirty war” in Northern Ireland. The “Nutting Squad” was responsible for killing dozens of suspected informers, whose naked bodies were typically dumped close to the border in South Armagh. They included a farmer from the Irish Republic and at least three other informers who worked for the Force Research Unit.

Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who is investigating allegations of collusion between the security forces and terrorists in Northern Ireland, is seeking to interview Mr Scappaticci over the 1987 murder of Francisco Notarantonio, a pensioner allegedly sacrificed and killed by loyalists instead of the British agent.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, said he was not shocked by the disclosure. “The authorities’ job is to get intelligence. That means turning people who are members of paramilitary organisations or finding someone who will penetrate them,” he said.

• The Ministry of Defence’s D Notice Committee, which guides newspapers on security matters, said that the identity of “Stakeknife” was in the public domain, so there was no reason to advise against publication of his name in The Times. However, a photograph was not in the public domain and it would not be in his interest to show his face.

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