N. Ireland man buried after four decades

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Belfast, Northern Ireland -- A funeral takes place Friday for one of Northern Ireland's so-called Disappeared, whose remains were found last month after nearly four decades.

Peter Wilson was a 21-year-old Catholic with special needs who went missing from his home in August 1973. His remains were positively identified earlier this week.

The suspected victim of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was expected to be buried after a Requiem Mass in west Belfast.

Wilson was the ninth member of the Disappeared to be recovered; seven others are still missing. They all vanished between 1972 and 1985, when Northern Ireland was engulfed in violence between pro-Irish republicans and pro-British unionists.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army admitted responsibility for 11 of the disappearances, while the Irish National Liberation Army -- also a republican group -- said it was responsible for another, according to the commission searching for the bodies.

Four of the deaths, including Wilson's, remain unexplained, though investigators believe he was abducted and killed by the IRA.

Wilson's remains were recovered from a beach in County Antrim on November 2 following a tip-off believed to have come from within the republican movement.

The excavation that led to the recovery of his remains was the first search for a Disappeared victim in Northern Ireland. The rest have been in the Republic of Ireland.

In October, investigators found the remains of another of the Disappeared, Gerry Evans, in Ireland.

Evans, from Crossmaglen in south Armagh, Northern Ireland, was 24 when he vanished in March 1979 in County Monaghan, Ireland.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is suspected of abducting, murdering and secretly burying him.

His remains were recovered last month in marshy ground at Carrickrobin, only days after officials had given up hope of finding a body following a 16-month search.
 
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