The President of Colombia has condemned the IRA after Marxist rebels bombed a Bogota hotel used only two weeks ago by a group of Irish politicians, Colombia Three campaigners and journalists.
President Alvaro Uribe said that the IRA and the Basque separatist group, ETA, had helped to train the FARC rebels who set off the bomb in a restaurant of the Tequendama Hotel last Friday, injuring 30 people attending a Christmas party. He added that that the attacks were designed to kill members of the Colombian parliament who used the hotel as a base in the Colombian capital.
The suitcase bomb tore through a restaurant in the hotel where an Irish, American and Australian delegation had stayed two weeks ago for the trial of three Irish nationals accused of aiding FARC rebels.
The group included Sinn Féin TD, Mr Sean Crowe, Independent TD, Mr Finian McGrath, Fianna Fáil's Sen Mary White, Ms Caitríona Ruane, who heads the campaign to have the three released, and a number of US and Australian lawyers and legal observers.
Four defence witnesses - Mr Danny Morrison, writer and former publicity director of Sinn Féin; former Long Kesh hunger striker, Mr Lawrence McKeown; a diplomat from the Irish embassy in Mexico, Ms Síle McGuire, and an Irish aid worker, Mr Ros O'Sullivan, also stayed at the hotel two weeks ago, as well as the Irish ambassador to Mexico, Mr Art Agnew, and a group of Irish journalists.
In a separate attack, Sen German Vargas Lleras, a prominent supporter of President Uribe, was wounded when he opened a book-bomb sent to his congressional office wrapped as a Christmas present, police said. Mr Vargas Lleras was rushed to a hospital with wounds on his right arm and hand. His condition was not life-threatening.
Television images late on Friday showed victims, some covered in blood, being evacuated from the hotel, a short distance from the courthouse where the Colombia Three's trial was adjourned. The bomb shattered windows and rained nearby streets with glass.
Friday's attacks came two days after authorities said they had stopped FARC plans to explode five powerful car bombs in Bogota.