Colombia Three
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The Colombia Three are three individuals – Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley – who are currently residing in the Republic of Ireland, having fled from Colombia, where they have been sentenced to prison terms of seventeen years for training FARC rebels. They first came to prominence when on 11 August 2001, they were arrested travelling on false passports at Bogotá International Airport while waiting to transfer to international flights out of the county. The Colombian authorities alleged at the time that they were training FARC rebels, and were members of the IRA. U.S. and British authorities provided information to the Colombian prosecutors.
Two of the three men, Monaghan and McCauley, had arrived in Colombia on 30 June on a flight from Belfast, via Paris. Niall Connolly had flown from Dublin, via Madrid, and spent a day in Caracas before making a rendezvous in Bogotá. The three men then spent the next five weeks travelling through a demilitarized southern zone of Colombia, then under the control of the Marxist FARC rebels as part of peace talks with the Colombian government. They were arrested as soon as they touched down in Bogotá on a commercial flight on the Saturday night.
After the men's arrest they were held for six months without charge, until 16 February 2002 when they were charged with training FARC rebels in bomb-making. After a number of delays, including a boycott of proceedings by the three accused, the trial opened on the 2nd of December 2002. Following a number of adjournments, the trial closed on 1 August 2003. The trial judge returned a verdict which saw the three men guilty of travelling on false passports and were given varying sentences of up to 44 months. They were found not guilty on the more serious charges relating to training FARC rebels; however, the judge ordered their release upon payment of fines equivalent to GB£3,800.
In accordance with Colombian law, the prosecution had the right to appeal the verdict which they did. While awaiting appeal, the three men were free to leave jail, but were instructed by a judge to remain within the country. The appeal court, however, overturned the original trial verdict, and convicted the men of training the rebels, sentencing them to seventeen years in jail on 16 December 2004. The next day, the Attorney General announced that the men had fled Colombia. On 5 August 2005, it emerged that the three men had clandestinely returned to Ireland following an interview by Jim Monaghan with RTÉ's Charlie Bird. The three men were subsequently questioned by Gardaí but no moves have yet to be taken in relation to extraditing the men to Colombia, despite the existence of an Interpol Arrest Warrant.
[edit] The Colombia Three
James William Monaghan was born on 9 August 1945, and is originally from County Donegal but his last known address was in Newry, Co Armagh. In the 1970s he was believed to have been active in the IRA, gaining the nickname 'Mortar' on account of being credited with inventing the IRA's first homemade mortars and, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, he is the head of the IRA's engineering section.
He was arrested on terrorist charges in Co. Donegal in the 1970s. In 1972 he was arrested in London and given a prison sentence for terrorism offenses. In 1975, he escaped from the special criminal court in 1976 following a double bomb blast. He was elected to the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle in 1989. According to Alex Maskey, he left Sinn Féin in 1989 or 1990, Monaghan however declared himself a member at his trial. In 1999 he joined an organisation called Coiste na n-Iarchimí, a Republican ex-prisoners group. He is reported to be a member of the IRA Army Council.
Martin McCauley was born on 1 December 1962 in County Armagh. He was shot aged 19 in 1982 by the RUC in a barn near Lurgan resulting from which he won a five-figure sum for damages against the RUC. He was later charged with weapons possession in Northern Ireland and received a suspended sentence. He was a Sinn Féin election worker during assembly elections in the Upper Bann constituency in 1998, but according to Alex Maskey was not a member of the Sinn Féin party. It is alleged that he is a member of the IRA and James Monaghan's deputy in the IRA Engineering Department.
Niall Connolly hails from Glenageary, Co Dublin, and was educated at Newpark Comprehensive School and Trinity College, Dublin. A fluent Spanish speaker, he had extensive experience in Latin America having worked there for a number of years. At the time of his arrest, he was resident in Cuba where the Cuban authorities claimed he was the Latin America representative for Sinn Féin. This was initially denied by Sinn Féin, but they later accepted that he had been working in Cuba as a part-time party representative.
[edit] References
Murray, Edmundo. "Explosive Journey: Perceptions of Latin America in the FARC-IRA Affair (2001-2005)" in Irish Migration Studies in Latin America Vol. 4 Number 2 (March 2006). Available online [1].
