The Belfast Agreement is under mounting pressure following a security assessment leak which said the IRA was using Colombia as a training ground and for weapons testing. It is claimed that IRA involvement in South America was sanctioned by senior members of the IRA army council.
Unionists, both pro- and anti-agreement, claimed it was a clear breach of the IRA ceasefire and some party MPs have called for Sinn Féin to be thrown out of the Stormont institutions. The British and Irish governments meet today and will discuss the leak.
Sinn Féin last night angrily denied the story, dismissing it as unfounded and accusing British "securocrats" of trying to ambush the peace process. Mr Gerry Kelly said: "They all come from the same anonymous British source who has been briefing journalists for almost a year now," he said.
BBC Northern Ireland reported last night that a security assessment outlined IRA involvement in Colombia. It also says that IRA activity was "definitely sanctioned at army council level by Thomas "Slab" Murphy and Brian Keenan, the IRA representative in contact with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
Three Irishmen are being held in Bogota facing charges in connection with the training of Marxist paramilitaries there.
The revelations, which are being taken seriously by the Northern Ireland Office, will have a major bearing on today's gathering of the British-Irish Council in Jersey and on a planned meeting next week between Mr David Trimble and Mr Gerry Adams.
The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, along with Mr Ahern and Mr Tony Blair will hold talks on the fringes of the meeting.A well-placed political source at Stormont told The Irish Times last night that this succession of confidence-draining controversies added to the prospect of a difficult marching season could do untold damage to the agreement.
The Northern Ireland Office has previously indicated there could well be sources within the establishment who are making things difficult for pro-agrement parties. But it was pointed out that four years after Good Friday 1998 those who voted for the peace deal should have clearer indications that paramilitaries are no longer involved in subversive activity.
The Conservative spokesman on the North, Mr Quentin Davies who was in Belfast last night said that if the reports were true, then sanctions should be introduced against Sinn Féin.
• Three Irishmen detained in Colombia are not being prevented from cooking their own food, the Colombian authorities have told the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Supporters of the men, Mr Niall Connolly, Mr James Monaghan and Mr Martin McCauley, yesterday claimed they had not eaten for five days for fear that their food was being poisoned.