A top United Nations inspector will travel to Northern Ireland later this year to probe allegations that the British army operated a policy towards IRA men, it was claimed tonight.
Civil rights group Relatives for Justice have launched a major campaign to force the British government into answering questions about its policy in two controversial killings more than a decade ago.
Campaigners also want the UN's Special Rapporteur on Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Pakistan-based Dr Asma Fahangir, to investigate claims loyalists who murdered a pensioner were plotting with the security forces.
Inquests into all three cases in the Co Tyrone area have been blocked because army and police chiefs refuse to provide material to the families' lawyers, the grouping said.
Contact has been made with Dr Fahangir's office and Relatives for Justice representatives are due to fly to Geneva to meet her in the autumn.
Spokesman Mr Mark Thompson said: "We expect before the end of the year to have the Rapporteur in Co Tyrone to carry out a preliminary fact-finding visit. She would speak with the families, their lawyers, the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable."
Ultimately the families want to have Government officials ordered to appear before a high-powered UN Human Rights Committee to answer tough questions. This should happen alongside inquests into each of the deaths, they claim.
The first of the cases involves IRA men Tony Doris, Lawrence McNally and Peter Ryan, who were shot dead by the SAS as they drove through the village of Coagh in a stolen car on June 3rd, 1991. It is believed the men were planning an attack when the soldiers opened fire.
Relatives for Justice has also posed questions about the SAS killings of Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Peter Clancy, Sean O'Farrell and Daniel Vincent at Clonoe near Coalisland on February 16th, 1992. Minutes earlier they had used a heavy machine gun to open fire on the local RUC station.
The third case involves the murder of Roseanne Mallon (76), by loyalists in her home near Dungannon, Co Tyrone, on May 8th, 1994. The Ulster Volunteer Force claimed it had been trying to kill nephews of the dead woman who had served prison sentences.