The leader of Colombia's FARC leftist rebel army has claimed three alleged IRA members charged with providing weapons training had in fact visited FARC-controlled territory to exchange views.
Mr Manuel Marulanda, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), told the Voz weekly that the three men - whom he described as Sinn Fein representatives - had visited the FARC-controlled area south of the capital "to exchange views, to get to know a life that is very different but also important, as they themselves acknowledged. They also told us about their struggle and their peace process," added the FARC leader, who is in his 70s.
No weapons or explosives training had been provided by the men, whose visit had been an activity which comes under the FARC's international relations, he said.
Mr Marulanda described the three, who are now being held by the Colombian authorities, as representatives of Sinn Fein. The three men, Mr Martin McCauley, Mr James Monaghan and Mr Niall Connolly, were arrested on August 11th at Bogota's international airport. The Colombian chief prosecutor's office has announced that the three had been charged with assisting illegal activities and using false documents.
The men are being held at a military post but will shortly be turned over to the national prisons agency which will designate where they will be held.
The authorities have up to eight months to initiate court proceedings and present evidence against the three. Before being arrested, they had spent five weeks in the FARC-controlled zone, according to the authorities.
Mr Marulanda told Voz, the official publication of the Colombian Communist Party, that a visit by an international delegation to this zone was not unusual.
The FARC had received visits there from various political movements and parties from Europe and Latin America, as well as from people such as the president of the New York Stock Exchange and the queen [Noor] of Jordan, he said. "There is no one we refuse to talk to."
Mr Marulanda said the arrest of the three men, and the highprofile charges brought against them, should be seen in the context of the upcoming expiry in October of the current authorisation for the FARC to control its demilitarised zone.
"It is nothing new that every time the authorisation for the demilitarised zone is due to expire these set-ups by [Colombian] military intelligence appear. The bad thing is that they don't just affect the peace process with the FARC, but also with the IRA, in Northern Ireland, where there has been a truce for two years," Mr Marulanda said.