State of few rights, many wrongs
Ian Paisley jnr is delighted that the verdict of their original trial, being innocent of training FARC rebels, was overturned.
In the days following the second verdict such politicians were given a wide berth by sections of the media to make similar statements, with little attention either to the facts about this case of the nature of the Colombian state.
Last year the UN High Commissioner issued a damning report on human rights violation in Colombia.
The UN noted ‘violation of the right to life, to personal freedom and security and to the lack of independence and impartiality of the judicial system.’
The report expressed concern about the increasing number of complaints of ‘illegal detentions, forced disappearances and extra-judicial executions.’
In 2002 and 2003 a total of 212 trade unionists were killed and 79 ‘disappeared’. Their crime was to oppose the oppressive government and demand better treatment for workers.
In 2002 six human rights prosecutors and one judicial investigator sought special protection from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
On February 6, 2002 public prosecutor Borja Martinez was killed. He had been investigating atrocities carried out by death squads aligned to the government.
Others in the legal profession, who have defended opponents of the government or exposed the wrongdoings of the Colombian military and police, have met the same fate. The lawyers who defended the three Irishmen are still under threat.
The original trial found the three men innocent of training FARC rebels. The forensic tests for traces of explosive proved negative, despite 113 attempts to get a positive result.
The three men were also able to prove to the court that they were not in Colombia on the dates they were supposed to have been training FARC there.
A diplomat was an alibi witness for one of them. She attended an Irish embassy dinner with him in Havana on the date he was accused of being in Colombia training the rebels.
The judge in the original trial, Judge Acosta, came under enormous pressure from the Colombian right wing to find the men guilty and was reported to have received death threats.
However he withstood the pressure and found them not guilty of training FARC.
He also ordered that two prosecution witnesses be investigated for perjury. This was overturned during the second trial by three judges who met behind closed doors. They never spoke to any of the witnesses or defence lawyers and had no new evidence before them.
These facts, and many more that are relevant to the case, were brushed aside by the scrum of right-wing Irish politicians, north and south, who seize every opportunity to advance their anti-republican agenda.
Brian Stanley
53 O’Moore Place
Portlaoise
Co Laois
