The public inquiry into the murder of County Armagh solicitor Rosemary Nelson is to get under way in April, it was announced tonight, 6 years after a bomb blew up her car.
The inquiry is the first of four recommended by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory after he investigated allegations of security force collusion in the murders and said they needed further probing.
The British government has also given the green light to inquiries into the murder of LVF leader Billy Wright, shot dead by members of the INLA inside the Maze Prison in 1997, and Robert Hamill who died in hospital after being attacked by a loyalist mob in his home town of Portadown, Co Armagh, in 1997.
An inquiry into the most controversial of the murders, that of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane, shot dead in front of his family in his north Belfast home by the UFF in 1989, has been blocked by the British government until all legal proceedings have been completed.
Ms Nelson, aged 40, died when a booby-trap bomb exploded under her car as she drove away from her home in Lurgan.
No-one has been convicted or even charged with the murder.
The Rosemary Nelson Inquiry will hold its opening hearing at the Craigavon Civic Centre in County Armagh on April 19. A date for the start of the full hearing will be set as soon after the opening as possible.
It will be chaired by retired English High Court judge Sir Michael Moreland, sitting with Dame Valerie Strachan, former chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise, and Sir Anthony Burden, former Chief Constable of South Wales.
PA