Republican ex-prisoners urge voters to snub Sinn Féin

A group of republican ex-prisoners has taken out a full-page advert in one of the North's leading newspapers urging people not to vote for Sinn Féin.

Around 250 ex-prisoners opposed to the party's decision to endorse the PSNI have signed the advert in the Irish News.

The move comes just 24 hours ahead of the Assembly elections in the North aimed at restoring power-sharing government.

The ex-prisoners are urging voters to support independent republican candidates, saying people's desires for peace were being cynically exploited.

The group says peace cannot be served by young nationalists joining the police and spying on republicans, claiming this is a betrayal of their cause.

The list of names includes two former Sinn Féin assembly men, a New York priest once convicted of a robbery for the IRA, a former hunger-striker and 105-year-old Dan Keating from Kerry, the last survivor of the War of Independence.