SF declines to be quizzed on terror links

Sinn Fein was branded as undemocratic tonight for failing to appear before a Dail committee to answer questions about alleged links with international terrorism.

Despite being asked last week to attend today’s hearing of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, committee chairman Des O’Malley received a reply from Sinn Fein calling for a long list of clarifications just hours before the meeting began.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said in the letter he would be ‘‘pleased to attend’’ but only if he could first meet Mr O’Malley to ensure he was not a victim of ‘‘blatant electioneering’’.

The claim infuriated members of the committee who said questions still needed to be answered about the possible links between Sinn Fein, the Colombian marxist rebel group FARC, Basque separatists ETA and the Libyan authorities.

Mr O’Malley immediately wrote back saying it would be ‘‘impractical’’ to meet Mr Adams before the committee convened. He wrote: ‘‘I doubt if you seriously expected this to happen,’’ and added:

‘‘These and other similar questions may not be answered today, but they won’t go away, you know.’’

The invitation was sent to Mr Adams and Sinn Fein’s only member of the Dáil, Caoimhghin O Caolain after Sinn Fein repeatedly refused to say if its leader would appear before the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee.

That committee wanted to know if the Sinn Fein or the IRA was linked to the marxist guerrilla group FARC, after three Irish republicans, Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley, were arrested in Colombia for allegedly helping to train members.

Mr O’Malley then suggested that Mr Adams appeared before his Dublin committee.

But the two wrote in their reply to Mr O’Malley: ‘‘As you will understand, we are concerned that your request may be an attempt to use the proceedings of this Committee for blatant electioneering and to pursue a domestic party political agenda which has nothing to do with foreign affairs.

‘‘If you don’t mind us saying so, it is a little strange that you have refused to talk to Sinn Fein for all of your political career and now in the last few weeks of your political life you seek to summon us to a meeting for an unspecified purpose.’’

They also raised fears that the request was electioneering ahead of the general election, the Dublin section of which Mr Adams launched today in the capital.

And they said such a hearing could prejudice the trial of the three men held in Colombia.