Sinn Fein has no case to answer following the arrest of three Irishmen in Colombia, the party president has said in an article for the New York newspaper, the Irish Voice.
Commenting publicly for the first time on the incident, Mr Gerry Adams said the treatment of Mr Niall Connolly, Mr Martin McCauley and Mr James Monaghan was reminiscent of the "trial by media experienced by the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four".
"The first I learned of this business was when the three Irish people were arrested. I can say with certainty they were not there representing Sinn Fein. I would have had to authorise such a project and I did not do so. Neither was I or anyone else asked to," he said.
"Efforts to make Sinn Fein accountable for these three Irish men are totally unjustified and serve no good purpose. My own view is that they should be released, and the Irish Government should be doing its best to secure their freedom as soon as possible.
"So whatever the hype, the lies and the propaganda, and no doubt there will continue to be a lot of all this . . . arising from these arrests, Sinn Fein has no case to answer."
Following the arrests earlier this month, the Cuban government named Mr Niall Connolly as Sinn Fein's Latin America representative.
Mr Adams also expressed disappointment at the response of the Government and the SDLP to the police implementation plan.
"At the very least their support for the British government's policing plans is premature and short-sighted," he said.
Attributing the SDLP's acceptance of the plan to its performance in the general election, Mr Adams said: "Maybe the SDLP felt it needed to take an initiative. It certainly has done that, but at what cost? The sensible thing was for all parties representing nationalist Ireland to stand together until the British government delivered on its obligations."
Instead, he said, the British government had been "allowed to play the oldest trick in the book. It is divide-and-conquer time again".