Mary Heenan's late husband Eugene "Paddy" Heenan was killed in 1973, when a grenade was thrown into the bus he was driving.
She's filing a law suit against the Ministry of Defence and Sir Frank Kitson, 88, who was the commander of Northern Ireland military operations at the time.
Even though Albert Baker has already been jailed life for killing Paddy Heenan, Mary Heenan's legal team are arguing Sir Kitson's position as head of operations makes him liable for Mr Baker's actions as well.
According to The Guardian newspaper, the lawyer for Mary Heenan, Kevin Winters, said: "These are civil proceedings for damages but their core value is to obtain truth and accountability as to the role of the British army and Frank Kitson in the counterinsurgency operation in the north of Ireland, and the use of loyalist paramilitary gangs to contain the republican nationalist threat through terror, manipulation of the rule of law, infiltration and subversion all core to the Kitson military doctrine endorsed by the British army."
The Ministry of Defence has said there is no evidence to support allegations that Sir Kitson was complicit in Albert Baker's murder of Paddy Heenan.
This is the first attempt to hold a senior officer in the army personally responsible for someone's death during the troubles, which lasted thirty years.