Monday, 2 December, 2002, 17:47 GMT

Three alleged IRA members charged with training Marxist guerrillas in Colombia have refused to appear in court in the country's capital, Bogota, to face trial.

Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan, who were arrested last year in the city, stand accused of training leftist insurgents in the use of explosives and other terrorist techniques.

But they say that the conditions do not exist for a fair hearing, and the trial is going ahead without them.

In a surprise move, Judge Jairo Acosta banned Colombian media from reporting witness evidence until after the trial had ended.

Two of the men are from the Republic of Ireland and one is from Northern Ireland.

Bias allegations

They face 20 years in prison if Judge Acosta, who will rule without a jury, decides they are guilty.

The men's defence lawyers have argued that their clients - who deny the charges - have already been unfairly convicted by the media coverage that has surrounded their case.

They have refused to leave their high-security prison for hearings on two previous occasions in protest at the proceedings.

Judge Acosta has denied allegations that he is under pressure to deliver a guilty verdict, declaring that his courtroom was "impermeable" to anything other than the facts.

Suspects adamant

The three men were arrested in August last year as they stepped off a plane that had come from the former territory of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the south of the country.

The Colombian prosecutor-general's office insists it has a tight case against the three, including forensic evidence and several witnesses who allegedly saw them training rebels.

But the suspects are equally adamant that they were in Colombia to observe the peace process between the former President Andres Pastrana and the FARC rebels.

The men are being represented by several teams of defence lawyers, both Colombian and Irish.

They say the forensic evidence is tainted and that the witnesses have been bought by the Colombian authorities.

The men have been visited in jail by prominent figures such as Paul Hill of the Guildford Four case, who spent 15 years in prison before his confession was ruled unsound.

The affair will be closely watched in Northern Ireland, where it has fuelled allegations by unionists that the IRA was breaching its agreed ceasefire.

The trial is scheduled to run for three days, but could last all week, followed by an adjournment and a resumption next year.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2002

Answers

Tuesday, 3 December, 2002, 02:26 GMT Court reporting, Colombian style

By Denis Murray BBC correspondent in Colombia

It was a sight you will not see in any British or Irish court.

As the trial of the three Irishmen finally began, the fairly small courtroom was jam-packed, not just with reporters, but television and newspaper cameras.

Flashguns were going off, microphones being placed into the well of court, cables being run.

The presiding judge, Jairo Acosta, who specialises in anti-terrorist and drug cases, had some time ago allowed not just the scribbling hacks in, but the whole paraphernalia of modern news media as well, to record proceedings.

The judge sits without a jury; and to add to the oddity of it all, the three accused were not there - a protest at their conditions in jail, and at how the case is being handled.

OK, there might be cameras in British courts one day - but I saw something in Bogota I just know I will never see there.

Acosta accosted

Mr Acosta had made a ruling in his opening remarks that none of the evidence of the witnesses was to be reported until the end of the "hearing" - the translator's words, provided because of the interest of the English speaking-media.

He called a short adjournment and was about to stand up, when a journalist, fluent in both Spanish and English, asked him a question from the back of the court!

That, folks, is the equivalent of breaking wind in church, would certainly earn a stinging rebuke (nobody does that better than judges) and might even land you with a contempt of court charge at home.

Gagging order

What she asked, though, turned out to be very important.

She had requested him to clarify his ruling on reporting.

He said that there was to be no reporting in Colombia of the witness evidence until the end of the trial - probably well into next year.

Now that is some gagging order.

And it had an effect on my reporting. The BBC World Service, and BBC World television can be heard and seen in Colombia.

I watched my own report on the opening of the trial on BBC World in our hotel.

Differing reports

The first witness was a major in Colombian Army Intelligence, which had been announced in the judge's opening statement - a fact not subject to the evidence stricture.

For BBC One and Radio 4, both domestic outlets, I could report what he told the court.

But I had to amend both the World television and radio reports with the following: "... because this report might be seen in Colombia, I can tell you that the first witness was a major in Colombian Army Intelligence, but I'm not allowed to tell you what he told the court".

The judge said his reason for the order was that he did not want the accused to know the evidence - presumably because if they did not want to turn up, then they were not entitled to hear it.

And in what I like to think has been a long and varied career, that was as strange a day as journalism can send you.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2002

No doubt we can look forward to similar indepth and informative news on this case?

This is weird.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2002