Three Irish men charged with training leftist rebels in Colombia have been ruled fit to stand trial.
Mr James Monaghan, Mr Niall Connolly and Mr Martin McCauley refused to attend the court hearing yesterday, issuing instead a statement insisting they were in the country to observe the peace process.
But in a pretrial hearing, Judge Jairo Acosta concluded the state's case was strong enough to go ahead and admitted key state evidence against the men. Their trial date was set for December 2nd.
Judge Acosta asked the Colombian secret police to prepare testimony regarding when and how many times the men entered and left the country, and he asked for an investigation of their alleged links to the IRA and Sinn Féin. He also asked for testimony from Gardaí.
He denied a request by the prosecutor to present evidence that Colombians had visited the three men in Ireland.
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In the statement read during an evidence hearing in Bogota, the three men complained they would not get a fair trial in Colombia because of the highly political nature of the charges.
"We visited Colombia to get to know the people, the natural beauty and the peace process between [former] President Andres Pastrana and the FARC guerrillas," the statement said.
Mr Monaghan, Mr Connolly and Mr McCauley were arrested at Bogota's airport 14 months ago after visiting a rebel stronghold in the southern part of the country.
Prosecutors claim they trained insurgents in explosives and other techniques for about a month.
The statement went on to accuse Mr Pastrana and President Alvaro Uribe of politicising the case.