Britain: Lord Hutton, the man named to head the inquiry, is a former Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland, writes Dan Keenan Northern News Editor
He succeeded Sir Robert Lowry, who became a Law Lord at Westminster, in August 1988.
As Mr Brian Hutton, he graduated with first-class honours in jurisprudence from Balliol College, Oxford.
He was called to the bar in Northern Ireland in 1954 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1970. He was also called to the English bar in 1972.
In Belfast he was a former legal adviser to the old Stormont Ministry of Home Affairs under Mr Bill Craig and Sir Robert Porter.
He was a member of the United Kingdom defence at Strasbourg when the European Court of Human rights indicted Britain for ill-treatment of internees in 1971.
He has served as junior counsel to the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, worked as Senior Crown Counsel for six years and became a High Court judge in 1979.
He has been involved in many high profile cases including that of Belfast City Council, which he fined £25,000 in 1987 for failing to carry out its duties in protest at the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.
He convicted Dominic McGlinchey of murder in 1984, but this judgment was overturned on appeal.
Lord Hutton was also the first Northern judge to sit in the High Court in Dublin.
Under the terms of the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act, he was allowed to do so as witnesses crucial to the case of the murders of Sir Norman Stronge and his son James in Tynan, south Armagh were unable to travel to Belfast for hearing.
Sir Norman was a former speaker of the old Stormont parliament.