Three men, allegedly travelling on false British and Irish passports, were paraded in handcuffs at a press conference yesterday at police headquarters in Bogota, Colombia, following their arrest on Saturday.
The detained men were named by the Colombian authorities as Mr David Bracken, Mr James Monaghan and Mr Martin McCauley. It also emerged yesterday that the Garda and the RUC were assisting Colombian police following the arrests.
There was no indication from the Colombian authorities that any evidence existed to connect the three with arms smuggling. However, Garda sources last night said that the arrests were in connection with activities associated with the IRA.
The three men were arrested inside Bogota's El Dorado Airport when they returned from San Vicente de Caguan in the south-east of the country. They will be put on trial later this month and local sources said they faced lengthy prison sentences if convicted.
It is understood that the three were arrested when they returned to Bogota after travelling to a demilitarised area in south-eastern Colombia which the government ceded to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, 2 1/2 years ago.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, is due to visit South America later this month as part of a three-week lecture tour.
The information emerging from Colombia last night comes as the political process in Northern Ireland is stalled over the issue of IRA decommissioning.
Senior republican and Sinn Fein sources said yesterday that the IRA might withdraw its offer to decommission weapons later this year if there was no progress on issues such as policing and demilitarisation.
The sources also warned that if there was any sign of British government retrenchment on the terms of the Belfast Agreement it would be "very unlikely that the IRA would keep their proposition on the table".
However, there was no hint that the IRA was on the verge of withdrawing its offer to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning to put its weapons beyond use.
The head of the decommissioning body, Gen John de Chastelain, is on holiday at present.
Addressing a Sinn Fein press conference in west Belfast yesterday, Mr Adams accused the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, of chicanery and said that he had "messed" with the Patten Commission recommendations on policing.
Mr Adams was sceptical that the policing implementation plan, due to be published this week, would contain sufficient changes to gain the support of the nationalist and republican community.