Spy story

Streisand Effect? UK Government Solicitor Worried About FBI/MI5 Infiltrator Book

'The Accidental Spy', by Sean O'Driscoll, is published this week by Mirror Books.

A book about David Rupert, the FBI and MI5 agent working inside Northern Irish Republican terror groups, has attracted the attention of the UK Government Solicitor.

Rupert — a 6'5, 21-stone former wrestler from Florida, who managed a trucking company in upstate New York — was recruited by the domestic UK and US intelligence to infiltrate the Continuity IRA, and later the Real IRA.

In a letter — seen by the Belfast Telegraph — sent by the UK Government Solicitor to the book's publishers, he expresses concern the book may contain "sensitive information" about the activities of Rupert which remain "strictly confidential", and asks for a copy of the book to be supplied urgently so the Department "can take instruction as to the extent any disclosures may put the personal safety of others at risk, or otherwise be damaging to national security".