The IRA has said it regrets killing a Belfast teenager who was found shot dead in the city in 1973.
The body of 15-year-old Bernard Teggart was found near the Zoological Gardens on the Antrim Road. At the time no organisation admitted the murder.
An IRA "statement of regret" was carried on Thursday in the inside pages of the republican newspaper, An Phoblacht/ Republican News, published in Dublin.
The paper noted that while nobody admitted killing Bernard Teggart, it was widely believed at the time he was shot dead by the IRA because they believed he was an informer.
Almost 31 years after the murder, the IRA statement said that at the request of the Teggart family it investigated the circumstances surrounding Bernard's death on 13 November 1973.
The IRA statement admits that it shot him but said the killing "should not have happened".
It also offers what it described as "its sincere apologies" to the Teggart family for the pain and grief caused.
Republican sources said the statement was not unprecedented and a spokeswoman for Sinn Fein welcomed the IRA comments.
She said: "It is a significant statement for the elderly parents and the family involved."
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