Colombia blamed for IRA trial delay

A group of Irish politicians and rights activists today blamed pressure by Colombia’s political and military establishment for the lack of a verdict in the trial of three IRA-linked men accused of training Marxist guerrillas.

The Colombian judiciary has increasingly come under fire for the sluggish pace of the trial.

James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly were arrested in August 2001 after they left a jungle sanctuary of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The three allegedly trained the rebels in terrorist tactics and explosives.

The trial ended six months ago, but Judge Jairo Acosta still has not issued a verdict – a delay the activists say is due to outside meddling.

“We are calling on the Colombian government to ensure that Judge Acosta is free from political and military pressure,” Sean Crowe, a Sinn Féin MP in the Irish parliament said in Bogota, the Colombian capital, tonight.

He said the judge must be allowed “to make a decision based on the evidence presented to his court.”

Judge Acosta attributed the delay in his ruling to an overwhelming case load, and told The Associated Press he hoped to make a decision by March.

Mr Crowe is part of a five-member delegation on a four-day trip to Colombia to meet government officials and the three defendants in Bogota’s La Modelo prison.

He said he believes the prosecution failed to show sufficient evidence to support the charges but that the trial was compromised after leading figures, including former President Andres Pastrana and the ex-commander of the armed forces, publicly stated that the men were guilty.

Defence lawyers insist that their clients – who travelled to Colombia under false identities – only wanted to observe Colombia’s now defunct peace process. The FARC lost their safe haven in the steamy jungles of southern Colombia when peace talks with the government collapsed in February 2002.

Irish Senator Mary White, another member of the delegation, said the three men are terrified they might be killed in prison by jailed members of the rebels’ right-wing paramilitary foes. “There is no doubt that their lives are at risk,” she said.

Outside the Bogota hotel where the delegation held a press conference, a dozen protesters chanted “Ireland, keep your terrorists at home” and held up banners that read “The FARC does not need a postgraduate degree in murder.”

Rodrigo Obregon, the president of the Wounded Colombia Foundation, which supports injured soldiers and police officers, said he was convinced the three men were instrumental in teaching the FARC how to use gas cylinders in bombings.

“Every Colombian knows it,” he said. “They are completely guilty.”

The terrorism charges carry between eight and 14 years in prison, and the false identity between two and eight. If found guilty on both charges, the men could face up to 22 years in prison.

Monaghan is an IRA veteran who was convicted in 1971 for possessing explosives and conspiring to cause explosions.

Connolly lived in Cuba for several years, where he served as the Latin American representative for Sinn Féin, party leaders have acknowledged.

McCauley was wounded during a police ambush at an IRA arms dump in 1982 and was later convicted of weapons possession.