Where are the graves of our loved ones, Gerry?

Pressure is mounting on the former leadership of the Provisional IRA to come clean about Northern Ireland's so-called 'Disappeared' following yesterday's discovery of the partial remains of a Belfast youth who vanished almost 30 years ago.

Danny McIlhone was among 15 Catholics to have been executed by the Provisionals during the Troubles and buried in secret graves. In most cases, they were suspected of being informers or British spies, though McIlhone was accused of stealing weapons from an IRA cache.

Information gathered by the official commission charged with locating the victims' last resting places led investigators to a remote hillside some 50 miles south of Dublin where McIlhone's remains were found.

The grisly discovery follows furious exchanges in the Northern Ireland Assembly last week during a debate on the continuing search for the disappeared, an issue that has contributed significantly to a four-month political deadlock.

The Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was accused to his face of having set up and directed the IRA hit teams that hunted down alleged traitors. "Is it not time for him to show some remorse for those crimes (and) the evil inflicted on so many families?" asked one senior Unionist politician. The allegations were vehemently denied by Adams, who paid tribute to the families of the missing - some of whom were in the public gallery - for their dignity in the face of "a grievous injustice".

The day before the debate, relatives of the disappeared held an All Souls' Day service outside the Assembly building. Among them