Videotape casts doubt over Colombia trial evidence

A VIDEOTAPE made in Belfast has placed serious question-marks over the integrity of evidence given by one of the key prosecution witnesses in the case against the three Irishmen charged with training FARC guerrillas in Colombia.

The film footage has cast serious doubt over some of the evidence of an unnamed defector from the guerrilla movement who told the court in Bogota that he saw a man, now identified as James Monaghan, and two others in the FARC-controlled region between February 5 and 25, 2001.

The defector told the court he collected a "white-haired foreigner" and drove him to a FARC training camp on February 5.