JEFFREY DONALDSON yesterday travelled to Colombia with a Northern Ireland victims’ group to campaign for the extradition of the Colombia three.

The Democratic Unionist party MP’s cousin, Alexander Donaldson, was one of nine RUC officers killed in an IRA mortar attack on Newry police station in 1985. The type of device used is believed by security forces to have been developed by Jim Monaghan, one of the republican trio convicted of training Farc guerrillas.

Donaldson said this lent a special poignancy to his journey. “It will create a bond with the Colombian victims of Farc,” he said.

On Tuesday, Donaldson and Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives will meet Francisco Santos, Colombia’s vice-president, and members of Colombia Herida (Wounded Colombia), a victims’ group headed by Rodrigo Obregon, an actor and human rights activist.

Obregon said yesterday that as a result of the Colombia three’s training of Farc, “many people have been maimed and killed”. He added: “We believe they must pay for that.”

Donaldson will lobby the Colombian government to fund members of Colombia Herida to visit Ireland so that they can lobby the Irish government.

“We want to support the Colombian government in their quest to have the three men extradited,” Donaldson said. “If you have an international network of terrorism exchanging training and expertise why can’t you have an international network of victims working to help each other?”

The return of the Colombia three to Ireland was probably approved by republican leaders to placate supporters, an Irish government minister said yesterday. Eamon O Cuiv, the gaeltacht minister and a grandson of Eamon de Valera, said it was important that the Irish government did not depart from the established constitutional and legal framework in dealing with the men’s return.

“All along, as the republican movement has been moving forward and as they have been dealing with the arms issue they’ve had an eye on how they convince their own supporters who might have been reluctant to go the political route,” he said.

“To keep that constituency with them has been a very important issue for Sinn Fein and all I can do is speculate that the Colombia three are part of that bigger picture.”

Senator Martin Mansergh, a former adviser on Northern Ireland to three taoisigh, has said that the three are unlikely to be sent back to Colombia because of the nature of its judicial system. In The Irish Times, Mansergh said the state could not be accused of harbouring terrorists unless people had been convicted according to a recognised process.

He said that two years in a Colombian jail was the equivalent of much longer in Mountjoy, Portlaoise or Castlerea.

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