The evidence showed that the so-called "Colombia Three" were IRA members who were training the FARC Marxist guerrillas in bomb-making techniques and they should be given the maximum sentence allowed by law, a courtroom in Bogota was told yesterday.
Although he did not give a specific number, the State prosecutor, Mr Carlos Sanchez, was in effect calling for a sentence of up to 24 years in the case of the three Irishmen, James Monaghan (56), Martin McCauley (40) and Niall Connolly (36), who are charged with providing terrorist training to Colombia's left-wing rebels and with using false passports. Yesterday the trial was adjourned until tomorrow when the three accused are due to appear for the first time.
The men were arrested at the El Dorado international airport in the Colombian capital on August 11th, 2001, and are currently held in Bogota's La Modelo prison. The final hearings in their trial began yesterday, although the judge, Dr Jairo Acosta, is not expected to give his verdict for several weeks and there may be appeals afterwards which could prolong the case for a further two years.
Mr Sanchez, in summing up the prosecution case, said the accused men came to Colombia, not as tourists or journalists as they had claimed, but as IRA operatives with the intention of training the FARC in urban warfare and terrorist weapons technologies. This took place in what was then a demilitarised zone of Colombia which had been ceded to the rebels as part of the peace process at the time.
Mr Sanchez said that since August, 2001, when the three men were arrested, the FARC had improved its weapons technologies: "This can be attributed to the training of the IRA."
He said it had been confirmed with the police in both parts of Ireland that the names they used on their passports and airline tickets were false ones. They were caught "in flagrante" (redhanded) at the airport in Bogota.
Mr Sanchez said videos had been "manipulated" to show that Mr Monaghan was in Ireland when the prosecution said he was in Colombia. The date and timecode were added at a later date, he claimed.
He said an Irish diplomat, Ms Sile Maguire, had displayed "selective memory" in her evidence. Ms Maguire, first secretary at the Irish Embassy in Mexico City, was allowed a partial waiver of diplomatic immunity to give evidence of meeting Mr Connolly at a dinner for an Irish parliamentary delegation in Havana on January 17th, 2001, when the prosecution alleges he was in Colombia. He said there was no document to prove that this dinner had taken place.
The chief arresting officer, Capt Hubert Pullido, had acted on a tip-off from British Intelligence when he picked up the three men. Mr Sanchez said their clothes tested positive for explosive traces.
He said that after his arrest, Mr Connolly said they had come as tourists; Mr Monaghan said he was interested in the ecology of the Amazon and wanted to write about its fauna and flora; Mr McCauley said he was writing a political essay about the situation in Colombia. Mr Sanchez said they had no video or camera equipment or notes in their luggage to give credibility to these claims.
There was heavy security at the court yesterday. A ban on local media reporting was lifted and many Colombian television and radio reporters were present.
The trial resumes tomorrow.