The verdict of the court in Colombia that three Irishmen charged with training left-wing guerrillas are not guilty of that offence is something of a surprise, given the high political profile of the case. But, it comes in the light of the legal evidence heard and the arguments made. The three men, who are associated with Sinn Féin, were found guilty on the lesser charge of travelling under phoney passports.
The outcome will give some temporary respite to Sinn Féin from persistent accusations that it has been pursuing a peace process in Northern Ireland while the IRA's military activities, short of murder, continue according to last week's report of the International Monitoring Commission.
Colombia is one of the most conflictual societies in the world today, torn apart by deep divisions of wealth and poverty laid over a prolonged civil war between established parties and a powerful guerrilla movement. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) control a large portion of the country and have been engaged in a long peace process designed to bring the conflict to an end. This changed after a new president was elected, committed to confronting FARC militarily rather than negotiating with it, an approach backed fully by the United States. The fact that most of the cocaine consumed in the US and elsewhere in the world comes from Colombia, much of it from the area controlled by FARC, adds lethal danger and political complexity to this story.
Inevitably, in these circumstances, suspicions ran deep that the three men were playing a military role in training the guerrilla movement, the most serious charge they faced. Both the tracking of the three and the spinning of this story has involved intelligence services from the US and Britain with an interest in damaging Sinn Féin.
But whatever the danger and violence of Colombia, its legal and administrative structures have not collapsed, as was seen during this prolonged and involved court case. It was fought essentially between corroborative evidence by two prosecution eye witnesses who said they saw the three men training guerrillas, against legal and documentary evidence for the defence that they had alibis and were not so involved. The verdict reflects the balance of that evidence, despite the long delays in announcing it. Why the three men were there in the first place has still not been satisfactorily explained.
Sinn Féin is relieved of some political pressure by this verdict, in the week after its association with an armed wing and continuing paramilitary violence was spelt out in the IMC's report. The best way to take advantage of the Colombia finding is for the party to choose an exclusively political path in Ireland, putting paramilitarism behind it for good. Sinn Féin activists may have been relieved of the more serious charges against them in Colombia, but the Irish people are entitled to an explanation as why it was necessary to travel on phoney passports.