New hearing gets underway into 'shoot-to-kill' deaths

A new hearing is due to get underway in the North today into six controversial killings that prompted claims of a shoot-to-kill policy by British security forces during the Troubles.

The coroner is due to re-examine the killings of six men by the RUC during three incidents in November and December 1982.

Three of the victims were IRA men shot dead at a checkpoint in Lurgan, while two were suspected INLA members shot dead by an undercover RUC unit near Armagh.

The sixth was 17-year-old Michael Tighe, who had no connection with any paramilitary group.

He was shot dead during an RUC operation at a hayshed where IRA explosives had been stored.

All the incidents prompted claims of a shoot-to-kill policy by the police and former RUC and British Army officers may be compelled to give evidence at the new hearings into the incidents.

John Stalker, a senior British police officer, was initially brought in to examine the matter, but his report was never published and the original inquests into the deaths were never completed.