COLOMBIA: DEFENCE TEAM VISITS THREE IRISHMEN ACCUSED OF BELONGING TO THE IRA AND TRAINING COLOMBIAN REBELS

Record ID: 645977

  • Title: COLOMBIA: DEFENCE TEAM VISITS THREE IRISHMEN ACCUSED OF BELONGING TO THE IRA AND TRAINING COLOMBIAN REBELS
  • Date: 31st July 2003
  • Summary: BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (JULY 29, 2003) (REUTERS) SLV EXTERIOR OF PRISON WHERE IRISH SUSPECTS ARE BEING HELD; SLV DEFENCE TEAM ARRIVING AT PRISON; MV DEFENCE TEAM ENTERING PRISON (9 SHOTS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CAITRIONA RUANE, SPOKESPERSON FOR IRISH SUSPECTS, SAYING "We had a visit with the three Irishmen, with Niall, Jim and Martin, and we had a very good visit. The only problem was that during the visit, the television was on and we had a general of the Armed Forces, General Mora requesting publicly a conviction of the three Irishmen. This is disgraceful. Where on earth is fair trial in this country. If you have a general of the armed forces publicly on television before a key day, the final summoning of the trial, calling for conviction."
  • Embargoed: 15th August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BOGOTA AND UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, COLOMBIA
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA89Y43I6M3140P30HXUVHA8Z7V
  • Story Text: Defence team visits three Irishmen accused of belonging to IRA and training Colombian rebels in prison a day before trial ends.
    A Colombian prosecutor on Monday (July 28, 2003) called for three Irishmen he said were Republican guerrillas to get up to 20 years in jail for teaching Marxist rebels advanced bomb-making techniques.
    "The state prosecutor ratifies its charges and requests an exemplary sentence," state prosecutor Carlos Sanchez told the Bogota court, which resumed for closing arguments after a mid-June adjournment.
    Jim Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley, who were arrested in August 2001 as they tried to leave Colombia using false passports, deny being members of the Irish Republican Army or instructing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, the nation's most notorious rebel group.
    The trio say they spent weeks in an impoverished region of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC during now defunct peace talks enjoying the sights, researching journalistic stories and studying the negotiations between the government and the rebels.
    But the prosecutor dismissed this claim.
    "There is not a guide nor a taxi driver who saw them engaged in their supposed bucolic activities or journalism.
    On the contrary, everything indicates they were training the FARC (rebels)," Sanchez said.
    The trial, conducted by a judge without a jury, has shaken Northern Ireland's fragile peace process.
    Investigators here have blamed IRA know-how for increasingly sophisticated attacks including a car bomb last February that killed 36 people and a mortar attack aimed at President Alvaro Uribe's swearing-in ceremony in 2002.
    The defence says there is no hard evidence and has produced a video that it says shows Monaghan in Belfast at a time when a prosecution witness recounted seeing him in structing Colombian rebels.
    The three men, who have up to now refused to appear at what they say is a politically motivated trial, were due to show up for the first time on Wednesday (July 30), said a spokeswoman for the "Bring them Home Campaign" organized in Ireland.
    Judge Jairo Acosta is legally obliged to deliver a verdict within 15 days of hearing closing arguments, but admits that the complexity of the case which has already dragged on for more than six months means he is likely to need more time.
    Acosta will also decide the sentence and has dismissed defense claims that he is under government pressure to find the men guilty and jail them for as long as possible.
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