Republican News · Thursday 27 February 2002

Bizarre Colombia trial shifts to Medellin

BY MARTIN SPAIN

The latest, and most bizarre yet, stage of the trial of the three Irishmen in Colombia facing charges of assisting FARC rebels, will get under way in the country's second city, Medellin, next Tuesday.

John Alexander Rodriguez Caviedes, a 20-year-old alleged FARC deserter, is due to give evidence in which he will claim to have witnessed Niall Connolly, Jim Monaghan and Martin McCauley training FARC guerillas while he was a driver for the rebel army.

His evidence will be heard away from the capital, Bogota, where the rest of the trial has been conducted to date and in the presence of a different judge. The reason for this, the prosecution claims, is that the expense of transporting Caviedes, who is in a witness protection scheme, to Bogota was prohibitive.

The expense invoved in transferring the prosecution and defence teams to Medillin just to hear one witness, who could have been flown to Bogota for $200, raises more than a few questions over this explanation. The more likely and less innocent reason for the shift of venue is that when first proposed, it was hoped his evidence could be given out of the media glare. Originally, it was intended that the defence would have no opportunity to cross examine Caviedes in Medellin but that rather he would present his evidence unchallenged.

Protests to Colombian government ministers, the presiding judge and the prosecution service by international observers and campaigners for the men and the eventual intervention of the Dublin government stymied this ploy, however.

Caviedes swore an affidavit first in September 2001, when lawyers were not present, but contradicted himself by giving different dates when he appeared in court in November 2001. When the contradictory statements were pointed out to him by defence lawyer Pedro Mahecha, he concluded a rambling statement with: "If I said what I said on 7 September, it was because my head, it was astray; I had worries and confusion. If I got the dates muddled it's because if you went through what I am going through and what the reinstated [FARC deserters] are going through, I think you would forget thousands of things, and it's been two months since I made that statement, and two months that I've been locked up; I have nothing else."

Bring Them Home spokesperson Caitríona Ruane and Dublin solicitor Pat Daly are leaving for Colombia on Saturday to observe the proceedings. It is understood also that the defence team is confident that, as with the video evidence of Jim Monaghan produced to contradict the testimony of the other main prosecution witness, testimony from Caviedes will also be effectively refuted.

The defence is set to present to the court sworn affidavits from Síle Maguire, first secretary of the Irish embassy in Mexico, and from Fine Gael TD Jim O'Keeffe, that they were both in the company of Niall Connolly at a dinner in Cuba on a date when Caviedes claims to have observed the three Irishmen in Colombia.

Speaking before her departure, Caitríona Ruane described this latest twist in the case as "a perversion of natural justice".

"The decision to move the trial to another city and before a different judge, just to hear one witness, shows the level of political interference there is in this case," she said. "It is time that the Irish government started acting on its responsibility to its citizens by calling publicly for the men's immediate release. The case against them has already been exposed as a tissue of fabrications, and we haven't even started to present the defence case yet."

The Bring Them Home campaign is organising a protest outside the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin on 15 March to protest at the government's failure to give adequate support to the men.

The trial proper is due to resume in Bogota on 25 March, when the defence witnesses will appear.