Northern Ireland's police chief has been formally told to hand over two unpublished reports on allegations of security force "shoot-to-kill" deaths more than 25 years ago, so inquests can finally go ahead.
Senior coroner John Leckey said he saw no reason why Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde could not now provide him with the Stalker and Sampson reports.
In 1994, Mr Leckey abandoned the inquests into the 1982 killings of the six men in three separate incidents, because he was not allowed access to the reports.
However, he said that in the light of a recent High Court ruling on another "shoot-to-kill" death, he saw no reason why he should not now be provided with access to both reports.
At a preliminary hearing in Belfast yesterday, he said he was asking the legal representatives of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to confirm that he, his team, and Mr Stalker and his team, would be provided with access to the Stalker report "and that I, my team and Sir Colin Sampson will be provided with access to the Sampson report".
The lawyer, barrister Bernard McCluskey, said Sir Hugh had yet to form an opinion on whether the reports could in fact be handed over.
He said "an investigation of the repercussions of disclosure" was being undertaken.
Mr McCluskey said he would be in a position by the start of December to advise Mr Leckey on a decision.
Mr Leckey is holding three inquests into the deaths of the six men. The first will be that of IRA men Eugene Toman, Gervaise McKerr and John Frederick Burns, who were shot dead by members of a specialist Royal Ulster Constabulary unit near Lurgan, Co Armagh, in November 1982.
Mr Leckey is also planning inquests into the death of Catholic teenager Michael Tighe, who was shot dead by the police in November 1982 - at a hay shed near Craigavon, Co Armagh - and suspected INLA men Roddy Carroll and Séamus Grew, who were shot dead near Armagh in December 1982.