The one thing Jim Monaghan, the Irish government, and the Colombian authorities seem to agree on is that there was no deal to allow the Colombia Three to return to Ireland. As Irish citizens, they are entitled to enter the country, but, once here, they deserve no special treatment.

The US government has already made it clear that it wants the Irish government to pursue the men, and Interpol too has called for an international arrest warrant to be honoured. The Irish government should listen to their pleas. In a television interview last week, Monaghan seemed confident the Irish authorities would adopt a see-no-evil approach to his wanted status. Nothing has happened, so far, to indicate that faith was misplaced.

But no amount of scoffing by Sinn Fein at the Colombian court system obscures the fact that the three men have been tried and convicted of training terrorists in another country. Those terrorists, using mortaring techniques perfected by the IRA, have killed hundreds of innocent people through the years. The three must now face due process in Ireland.

The fact that there is no extradition treaty between Ireland and Colombia does not mean that nothing can be done. The Extradition Act 1965 allows for wanted individuals to be sent to foreign countries even when no treaty exists. Also, the gardai, as Interpol has pointed out, are obliged to act on an international warrant for their arrest.

The three fugitives should not be accorded special status simply because they are linked to Sinn Fein. Nor should they be used as a bargaining chip in Northern Ireland’s protracted peace process. By all means, allow the Colombia Three to plead their case before Irish courts, which have adequate powers to decline extradition requests or impose conditions on them. That is the appropriate forum in which to air concerns about the human rights record of Colombia, or conditions in prisons there.

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