A dispute has broken out between the Colombian authorities and campaigners for the three Irishmen charged with training anti-government rebels over an alleged delay in issuing a visa to Mr Paul Hill of the Guildford Four, who had been planning to attend the trial as an observer.
Mr Hill will not now be present at the proceedings against Mr James Monaghan (56), Mr Martin McCauley (40) and Mr Niall Connolly (36) , who face 15 to 20 years in prison if found guilty of training the Marxist rebels of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in IRA bomb-making techniques.
The Bring Them Home Campaign has complained that the visa for Mr Hill was issued too late for him to travel to Colombia for the trial, which resumes in Bogota today. However, the Colombian government says the visa was issued more quickly than normal.
A team of nine observers was put together by the campaigners to attend the trial. They include two Oireachtas members - Sinn Féin TD Mr Sean Crowe and Sen Mary White of Fianna Fáil - and lawyers from Australia, the US and Ireland.
Mr Hill, who served 15 years in British prisons on terrorist charges that were later overturned, observed the trial last December and was due to attend this week with other members of the delegation.
The Bring Them Home Campaign said Mr Hill's visa application was submitted along with his passport two weeks ago but a spokeswoman for the Colombian embassy in London insisted it was not received until after office hours last Wednesday.
The Colombian spokeswoman said the authorities in Bogota were contacted on Thursday morning for approval, this was granted on Monday and the visa was inserted into Mr Hill's passport, which was delivered to the Irish embassy in London yesterday afternoon. She said it was all done in three working days, which was less than the normal time for issuing visas. She added that there had been "no hold-up" and the application was "processed as quickly as it could be processed".
Speaking by telephone from his home in Co Clare last night, Mr Hill said that when he was leaving Bogota in December, his passport was ripped up by an immigration official at the airport. "They made it abundantly clear they didn't want me there," he said.
He was telephoned at 4 p.m. yesterday by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin to tell him that his passport, stamped with a Colombian visa, was ready in London.
He said it was "catch-22" as he did not have a driver's licence and his only valid photo identification was his passport, which he needed to fly to London to collect the visa.
"I was exiled in my own country," he said.
He had been prepared to fly through Miami, Barbados or Venezuela in order to get to Bogota but he needed his passport.
He also accused the Colombian authorities of creating bureaucratic difficulties by asking for an up-to-date bank statement when they were "well aware" from his previous visa application that he was financially viable. He was also asked for extra photographs but the other applicants were not.
Mr Hill said he was singled out due to his media profile and because he was related to the Kennedys by marriage: he is married to Courtney Kennedy Hill, daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy.
Ms Caitriona Ruane of the Bring Them Home Campaign accused the Colombian government of imposing "bureaucratic blocks" to create difficulties for Irish people such as Mr Hill who wished to observe the proceedings. "In effect they have denied him a visa in time to attend the trial," she said.
Ms Ruane said Ireland was the only European Union member-state whose citizens needed visas to enter Colombia and this was "discrimination against Irish people". She added that Mr Hill was slandered as a "terrorist" in a Colombian newspaper during his last visit.