Judge move prompts call to clear Colombia Three

THE Government was yesterday urged to act after one of the judges who convicted three republicans of training Colombian rebels questioned the evidence on which the men were convicted.

The conviction, by three judges, was made in December and overturned an earlier acquittal, against which the Colombian attorney general had appealed.

The dissenting opinion of Judge Jorge Enrique Torres was released by the Colombia court authorities yesterday. He said much of the technical evidence in the case was “questionable”.

He said he agreed with his judicial colleagues that the three men were guilty of travelling on false documents but could not agree they were guilty of training FARC guerrillas.

Lawyers acting for the three Irishmen said they were hopeful the dissent would enable them to get the conviction overturned.

Sinn Féin assembly member Catriona Ruane, of the Bring Them Home Campaign, said the Government must act following the judge’s comments.

“We have always said the December judgment was a political judgment, there was no evidence against the three men. We are now calling on the Irish government to urgently contact the Colombian authorities.”

James Monaghan, 58, from Co Donegal, Niall Connolly, 38, from Dublin, and Martin McCauley, 41, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, were arrested at Bogota airport in August 2001 as they were about to fly out of the country.

They were accused of travelling on false passports and training FARC rebels in terrorism techniques. They denied the charges and were held in custody until last April when they were found guilty on the first charge but not guilty of the key charge of training the guerrillas.

The Colombian attorney general appealed against the acquittal and last December it was overturned.

The men, however, had been released from custody last June, pending the appeal. They went into hiding and did not turn up for the retrial. The Colombian authorities believe the men may have crossed the border into Venezuela.