Derry people demand Doherty's release

Hundreds of friends and neighbours of Derry republican Martin 'Ducksie' Doherty, who was jailed for his refusal to give evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, placed a full-page advertisement in Tuesday's Derry Journal calling for his immediate release.

Last month, Doherty, from the Creggan estate, was sentenced to three months in Maghaberry jail for being in contempt of the Saville Inquiry.

Doherty has consistently said he wasn't in the Bogside on 30 January 1972.

The advertisement states that Doherty was jailed because he refused to answer unfounded unsubstantiated and untrue allegations.

John Kelly, whose brother, Michael was shot dead on Bloody Sunday, branded Doherty's imprisonment "outrageous".

"It is utterly disgraceful that after 33 years the first man to spend a night in jail for Bloody Sunday is a Derry man who wasn't there," he said. "It was not Martin Doherty who killed or wounded 28 people in Derry on 20 January 1972."