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Colombian prosecutor alleges Irishmen are IRA members
A Colombian prosecutor on Monday ridiculed the defense of three men accused of being Irish Republican Army guerrillas who say they visited a rebel stronghold as tourists not bomb-making instructors. âThere is not a guide nor a taxi driver who saw them engaged in their supposed bucolic activities or journalism. On the contrary, everything indicates they were training the FARC (rebels),ââ state prosecutor Carlos Sanchez told the court. Should have said you were NGO peace activists on a fact finding mission. Or just looking to score some coke. Jim Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley, who were arrested in August 2001 as they tried to leave Colombia using false passports, deny being IRA members. "We was framed! Itâs just another example of the opression of the Irish people by John Bull and his jackbooted.....what? Oops, sorry, wrong country." Colombian authorities demand maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison for the three Irishmen, whom they accuse of teaching the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- known as FARC --advanced bomb-making techniques. The trio say they spent weeks in an impoverished region of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC during now defunct peace talks enjoying the sights, researching journalistic stories and studying the negotiations between the government and the rebels. Must work for the same Irish "news organization" as that "journalist" the IDF tossed out of Israel last week. Colombian investigators have blamed IRA know-how for increasingly sophisticated FARC attacks including a car bomb last February that killed 36 people and a mortar attack aimed at President Alvaro Uribeâs swearing-in ceremony in 2002. Dozens of witnesses have testified over the past six months, including rebel defectors, explosives experts and Irish Republicans who served time in Northern Irish jails. The prisoners, held in a top security prison near Bogota, have refused to appear in court, saying the case is politically motivated. If you mean are the Colombian politicians motivated to throw your ass in prison because you trained the FARC, the answer is "Yes". Posted by: Steve 2003-07-28 |
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