The prosecution of three Irishmen for allegedly training left-wing FARC guerrillas was "the most absurd case in the history of justice in Colombia", a defence lawyer told the court in Bogota yesterday.
Mr Martin McCauley, Mr Niall Connolly and Mr James Monaghan are charged with instructing the Marxist FARC rebels in IRA bomb-making techniques for the purposes of mounting an urban warfare offensive.
They are also charged with entering Colombia on false passports.
The three were arrested in Bogota's El Dorado airport on August 11th, 2001, and have been detained ever since.
In the first of a series of closing statements for the defence, Mr Pedro Mahecha rejected the prosecution's claim that Mr Monaghan was an activist in the IRA.
"It is absurd to think that Sinn Féin would, in the delicate situation of the (Irish) peace process, send Jim to Colombia. It would be an absurd political decision."
He said the James Monaghan presented by the State Prosecutor in the case was not the Monaghan of today but the man as he was shown in British intelligence reports of 20 years ago.
The video presented to the court had shown Mr Monaghan speaking in Ireland in 2001 about reconciliation.
"A reconciliation not yet apparently possible in Colombia, while in Ireland it is possible not only to get the territorial reunification but to construct a State where Catholics and Protestants can co-exist."
He added: "This is the Jim Monaghan of today, not the one which on Monday morning the prosecutor so ably presented to us based on British intelligence."
Mr Mahecha said the Prosecutor's office was an "apparatus of war" in Colombia. In recent years, the defendant had worked to reintegrate republican prisoners into society.
Among the international observers attending the trial is Senator Mary White, of Fianna Fáil, who is due to make a report on the proceedings to the Foreign Affairs Committee at Leinster House.
The trial resumes today.