Unionist MPs today called for a fresh examination of the circumstances surrounding leading loyalist Billy Wright's killing in jail.
Democratic Unionist deputy leader Mr Peter Robinson and dissident Ulster Unionist MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson said they were concerned the original investigation into the killing by the INLA in the Maze prison during Christmas 1997 had not been done properly.
Emerging from a meeting with Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde, Mr Robinson said: "In March of this year Mr Justice Kerr in the High Court indicated that as far as the Wright case was concerned there had not been an investigation compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.
"The obligation is there for all police services throughout Europe to carry out investigations along certain standards and it was a view of the High Court judge that that did not occur in the case of Billy Wright.
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"I don't think anybody argued that the people who actually carried out the murder were properly convicted and sentenced although they are now out of prison.
"What is the case is that there was not a proper investigation into the conditions surrounding the murder and whether there was any involvement by any organ of the state in the events leading up to the murder.
"So I think you can understand the situation of the Wright family when they say there hadn't been an investigation which has met the proper standard and we want it carried out," Mr Robinson said.
Mr Wright was the leader of the hard-line Loyalist Volunteer Force that broke away from the Ulster Volunteer Force over its support for the peace process. He was gunned down in a prison van in December 1997 as he waited to be taken to a prison visit.
Mr Wright's family have called for an inquiry into a number of controversial aspects to the killing including the revelation that a tower overlooking the scene of the shooting was not manned and the security cameras were not working.
It has also been claimed that INLA prisoners were able to hear an announcement that he had a prison visit.
Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory had investigated the circumstances of Mr Wright's killing.
PA