Hundreds massacred 'using IRA methods'

Hundreds of people have been massacred by Colombian rebels using techniques similar to those deployed by the IRA during the Troubles, it was claimed today.

In comments which have ignited a fresh row with supporters of three republicans accused of training Marxist FARC guerrillas in Colombia, the country’s Prosecutor General Luis Camilo Osorio claimed recent mortar bomb attacks used the same technology deployed by the Provisional IRA during its bombing campaign.

He also claimed the IRA tested weapons while visiting rebels in the jungle.

“The techniques that the FARC have developed in recent years show that they have had technical assistance and used technology similar to those used by the IRA,” he said.

”We are talking about a type of cylinder with explosives and we’re talking about a type that consists of a series of long tubes in which you put rockets similar to those used by the IRA.”

Mr Osorio claimed that in one attack, 115 people were massacred, “most of them children and defenceless women taking refuge in a church”.

He also said that the case compiled against the three men - James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly - was supported by evidence from a number of witnesses who saw the men enter the zone in the Colombian jungle controlled by FARC and train and instruct “the subversives” in weapons techniques.

Lab tests for explosives also supported the prosecution’s case, he told BBC Northern Ireland.

The three men, who were arrested in August last year, have been awaiting trial and are expected to go to court in October.

The Prosecutor General claimed diplomatic red tape had delayed the trial date.

However, he came under heavy criticism today from supporters of the three Irishmen who accused him of interfering in the course of justice.

Bring Them Home Campaign chairperson Caitriona Ruane, who was in the Colombian capital of Bogota today lobbying on behalf of the three suspects, claimed Mr Osorio had undermined their right to a fair trial.

She said: “The Prosecutor General’s office is the office that has been prosecuting the men.

“His comments are very serious given that he is a senior judicial figure and he should not be making public comments about the case.

“Later today I will be meeting the lawyers and I will meet the United Nations and will be raising his comments because it is an interference in the right to a fair trial.”

Ms Ruane insisted that the case against the three Irishmen was questionable, claiming one of the eye-witnesses being used to testify against them had several discrepancies in his statements.

On one date he had given for the three republicans being in the FARC zone, Niall Connolly was dining with a group of Irish parliamentarians in Colombia, she claimed.

Ms Ruane also queried claims that FARC were now deploying techniques used by the IRA.

“People have got to understand there has been a conflict going on here in Colombia for more than 30 years,” she argued.

“All the Press are saying that this is the first time that there has been urban warfare here in Colombia. That is absolute nonsense.

“(Drugs baron) Pablo Escobar carried out urban guerrilla warfare in Colombia, so all that is happening here is a hyping up, a throwing of more mud and trying to make some of the mud stick.

“All we are saying is that these men should be tried in a court of law and not in the media.”