SDLP ad to feature Guildford Four member

A member of the Guildford Four is to feature in an SDLP party election broadcast for the Northern Ireland Assembly today.

A member of the Guildford Four is to feature in an SDLP party election broadcast for the Northern Ireland Assembly today.

Mr Gerry Conlon, one of four people wrongfully imprisoned for an IRA bombing in Guildford in 1974 which killed five people, is to feature in the broadcast.

The election film will be screened in Northern Ireland tonight and a radio version will also be transmitted.

Mr Conlon's father Guiseppe and the Maguire family, who were related to him, were also wrongfully jailed for involvement in the Guildford and Woolwich bombings. Guiseppe Conlon died in prison in 1980 following respiratory problems.

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The SDLP's election broadcast is a variation of a film aired in May during the initial Assembly Election campaign which was aborted by Prime Minister Tony Blair amid concerns over the IRA's intentions towards the peace process.

The SDLP's film, which will be launched by party leader Mr Mark Durkan in the party's new press centre in Belfast, also features Ms Marion Quinn, a Derry woman targeted several times and threatened by hard-line republicans because of her participation on a local police board.

Last night, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and his wife Daphne formed the basis of his party's election broadcast built around the new slogan 'Simply British'.

The SDLP is facing a tough battle with Sinn Féin to emerge as the biggest nationalist party in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The SDLP party had more six seats at Stormont during the last Assembly but in the 2001 Westminster elections, Sinn Féin had four MPs to the SDLP's three and edged in front in the battle for the popular vote.