A specially formed police team today began examining more than 3,000 unsolved murders from Northern Ireland's Troubles.
The PSNI's Historical Enquiries Team (HET) will open files on an initial batch of 100 unsolved cases.
The work, which will be carried out in chronological order, will focus on a 29-year period from April 1969 to the signing of the Belfast Agreement in April 1998.
As details of the investigator's remit were revealed on Friday there was speculation their work could uncover the involvement of a number of republican and loyalist politicians in unsolved killings.
Dave Cox, a former retired Metropolitan Police commander who heads the HET, said his officers would reopen the files on 3,268 cases during the Troubles and would try to achieve the best resolution for victims' families.
A total of £24.3 million has been allocated for the 84-member police unit, based at Sprucefield, near Lisburn, Co Antrim. A further £7.3 million has been set aside for forensic scientists using modern techniques to help solve the cold cases.
SDLP policing spokesman Alex Attwood said the work of the HET would go some way to helping Northern Ireland deal with its bloody past.
PA