Sinn Fein decision on Colombia hearing due
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is today deciding whether to travel to the US to answer questions about alleged links between his party, the IRA and the Colombian guerilla group Farc.
With just days to go before the Congressional hearing Mr Adams was still refusing to say if he would face a committee probing links between Irish republicans and Farc, following the arrests in Colombia of three Irishmen last year.
But Mr Adams said senior party members would meet in Belfast to decide if he should travel to the House of Representatives for the hearing on Wednesday.
Mr Adams said that he was being advised not to go despite repeating that it was his ‘‘instinct’’ to attend.
He said: ‘‘The lawyer of the three men on trial in Colombia believes that a hearing which deals with them or their case would be prejudicial to them having a fair trial.
‘This increasingly appears to be little to do with Ireland, to be all to do with those in Colombia who want funding for their own purposes.’’
The House of Representatives International Relations Committee would be informed of the decision before it is made public, Mr Adams added.
Earlier, the Bring Them Home Campaign - representing the three arrested men, Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley - also raised fears that the hearings would prejudice a fair trial.
The men are being held on suspicion of helping train Farc guerrillas in the rebel-controlled territory.
Campaign spokeswoman Caitriona Ruane said: ‘‘The people invited to attend may produce what they say is intelligence material which cannot be challenged in a court of law, this in effect is hearsay, rumour, gossip.
‘‘If it is more than that it should have been presented to the prosecution in Colombia. The place for a trial is not at a Congressional hearing taking place in another country.’’
Agustin Jimenez, lawyer for the men in Colombia, raised the prejudicial nature of the Congressional hearings, and what he saw as prejudicial comments from the Colombian president in Washington last week, with the office of the UN Rapporteur on Fair Trial in Geneva last Thursday.
