The Irish News leads with the start of the trial in Colombia, and the attack on Raymond Kelly allegedly by the IRA. The News Letter leads on new evidence that the Provisional IRA was involved in the break-in at Special Branch offices in Castlereagh. 

Colombia

The trial begins today of the three Irishmen charged with training Marxist rebels in Colombia. Colombian lawyers representing the men yesterday told reporters they did not believe the three men would receive a fair trial and said the case should not go ahead indicating that the Colombian and the United States Governments had interfered in the case. Irish News P1, News Letter P11, Irish Times P9, Irish Independent Ps 3 & 6, Financial Times P2, Sun P2, Daily Mirror P3, Guardian P10.

Irish Independent Editorial P10 says that the Colombia affair casts a shadow over the peace process as it is one of the factors regularly cited by unionists as evidence that the IRA has not abandoned terrorism.

Independent P3 Editorial says that the episode has continued to inflict major damage in the Irish republican movement and the trial comes during a particularly sensitive part of the Irish peace process. Due to the Ulster Unionist Party claim of what it describes as the failure of Sinn Fein/IRA to honor their commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

Oct. 3, 2002

MERVYN JESS - COLOMBIA - BBC NEWSLINE 
(courtesy of the Northern Ireland Information Service)

REPORTER

The IRA has denied sending any of its members to Colombia to train Guerilla groups there.

MERVYN JESS

This is a long way from home. The Colombian capital Bogota sprawls over a Savannah, 8,000 feet above sea level. Every month the population of 7 million is swollen by thousands of farm workers driven from their lands in the countryside by left wing rebels and right wing paramilitaries. NARCO terrorists, like the FARC, are number one on the most wanted list. The arrests in August of last year of three IRA suspects grabbed the headlines. 

Niall Connolly from Dublin, Martin McCauley from Lurgan, and James Monaghan from Co Donegal, were detained at the airport as they were leaving Colombia. They all had false passports and the Colombian authorities accused them of training FARC rebels in the jungle camps.

Since their arrests, the three Irishmen have been moved to a number of custody centers, because of concerns over their safety, they're currently in the maximums security wing here at La Pecuta jail on the southern most limits of the city. The lawyer heading up the defense team outlined his concerns about this case.

LAWYER

This case is tainted because high ranking Colombian Government officials, including former President Andras Pastrana, have publicly affirmed that these men are guilty.

MERVYN JESS

The British and Irish Governments have been watching events in Colombia closely, as have political parties at Stormont. During a recent visit to Belfast, the US Special Envoy to Ireland outlined his Government's concerns about the arrests.
 

RICHARD HAASS

The United States has an Embassy in Bogota, obviously we will be observing what goes on. As I've said all along in this question, our biggest concern has been that there been no continuing role whatsoever, between any organization of paramilitary in this country, and terrorist groups around the world such as the FARC.

MERVYN JESS

This has been a high profile case inside and outside Colombia.

(UNCLEAR)

All networks in Latin America Europe, they have asked us for information and to cover all this trial. For example, I'm talking about Spanish television, and Hola Spanish television in United States and television Mexico, and foreign networks in Latin America, there is a good expectation about this trial.

MERVYN JESS

Tomorrow morning, a cramped room here at the Treband de Bogota, will be the setting for the first public exchange between the lawyers for the defense and for the prosecution. Those who know the legal system in Colombia say, it will be the first of many in the days, weeks and possibly months that lie ahead.