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The provisionals also gave details of their own investigation into the killing - admitting some of their members were involved after a five-and-a-half hour meeting with his family.



But the McCartneys made it abundantly clear that they did not want any physical action taken.



It remains to be seen how the statement will be received in a community almost universally revulsed by the killing.



For a republican movement struggling for respectability, it is the most extraorindary tactic, an open statement from the IRA threatening to shoot those involved in the murder of Robert McCartney.



Robert McCartney was stabbed at a bar in central Belfast in January.



Eyewitnesses claim IRA members carried out the murder -with a ruthless cover-up and intimidation of witnesses.



It is a case that has spawned an unprecedented grassroots rebellion in a Belfast republican heartland.



The family of the dead man have led the campaign, all the time calling for Mr McCartney's killers to be tried in court.



They will have reacted with horror when IRA chiefs visited them last month and offered to shoot those involved.



The IRA statement issued today says: "The IRA representative detailed the outcome of the internal discplinary proceedings thus far and stated in clear terms that the IRA was prepared to shoot people directly involved in the killing of Robert McCartney."



"The family made it clear that they did not want physical action taken against those involved. They stated that they wanted those individuals to give full account of their actions in court."



One of Robert McCartney's relations described the IRA offer of summary justice as "highly insensitive".



The McCartney family attended Sinn Fein's party conference in Dublin at the weekend, and listened to the party's president Gerry Adams call for those involved in the murder to come forward.



Mr Adams will have known - even as he said that - that the IRA was offering a very different, summary justice.



An organisation on ceasefire has not only openly stated its willingness to shoot individuals but also revealed a series of detailed confessions from un-named individuals - its insistence that all these were obtained voluntarily beggars belief.



The McCartney sisters were meeting Irish ministers in Dublin today but have not yet commented on the IRA statement.



Next week, they fly to Washington and the White House -just as Sin Fein's regular invitation there has been cancelled.



This latest bizarre twist leaves Washington London and Dublin wondering if the Republican political leadership is losing its touch or even worse, its restraining influence