The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman is to investigate one of the most controversial shoot-to-kill allegations against the security forces.
Nuala O'Loan has been asked by the British government to reopen files on the 1982 killing of three unarmed IRA men by Royal Ulster Constabulary officers after a chase through a checkpoint in Co Armagh.
The three men were killed when police officers opened fire on their car at a checkpoint near Lurgan, Co Armagh, in November 1982. A total of 109 bullet holes were later found in their green Ford Escort.
Two of them had been suspected of the killings of three RUC men a fortnight previously.
Mrs O'Loan has also asked for the RUC files into five other controversial killings to be re-examined as well, following a Council of Europe ruling.
Among the other five other cases is the murder by loyalist paramilitaries of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. He represented the widow of one of the three IRA men shot and was himself shot dead at his home in north Belfast in February 1989.
Three police officers were later cleared of the murders of the three IRA men, Sean Burns (21), Eugene Toman (21) and Gervaise McKerr (33).
At one stage the former deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, John Stalker was called in to carry out an independent inquiry amid claims that police at the time had adopted a shoot-to-kill policy - an accusation denied by the-then chief constable, Sir John Hermon.
A Coroners Court inquest into the deaths has never been completed due of legal wrangles.
Now the British government has asked the Ombudsman's Office in Belfast to get involved following claims by the Committee of Ministers at Strasbourg that none of the inquiries into the six cases had been effectively completed.
Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson said the new inquiries had the potential to cost a huge amount of taxpayers' money. "There is no benefit to the community in Northern Ireland in doing this," he said. "The Ombudsman's fixation with past cases is damaging the reputation of her office and is undermining the prospect of moving Northern Ireland towards a better future."
Sinn Féin called for publication of the Stalker Report and the immediate publication of all other inquiries relating to the alleged policy of shoot-to-kill.