Reuters UK ...By Kevin Smith
Fri Aug 5, 2005 8:39 PM BST
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news...H-COLOMBIA.xml The 'War' is over - NOW. POWs exchanged! Quote:
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Three Irish fugitives accused of Irish Republican Army membership and convicted by a Colombian court of teaching Marxist rebels how to make bombs resurfaced in Ireland on Friday, triggering a political storm.
The men's reappearance in their home country comes a week after the IRA vowed to end its 30-year armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland, prompting suspicions their return may have been part of a deal with the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein to secure the guerrilla group's pledge.
Jim Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley, were arrested in Colombia in 2001, accused of being members of the IRA and of training members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in bomb-making techniques.
The three, who have denied the accusations, disappeared after their release from a Bogota jail last December pending a state appeal against their initial acquittal.
That first ruling was overturned and the men sentenced to up to 17 years in prison, but by that time authorities had lost track of them.
Interviewed by Irish state broadcaster RTE, Monaghan said he and the other two men had returned to Ireland in recent days but it had not been as part of any political horsetrading.
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The 'War' is over - NOW. POWs exchanged!
Aug 5, 2005, 06:54 pm
