Billy Wright was the leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force which was responsible for sectarian assassinations, mainly in mid-Ulster, and other violence and criminality.
He was shot dead by the INLA in the Maze prison, where he was a prisoner, on December 27th, 1997.
INLA prisoners were convicted of the murder, but there were allegations, voiced principally by Wright's father, that there was official collusion in his killing.
The Billy Wright inquiry will be chaired by Lord Ranald MacLean of the Court of Session in Scotland. He will be supported by Prof Andrew Coyle, director of the International Centre for Prisons Studies at King's College, London, and the Right Rev John Oliver, retired diocesan bishop of Hereford.