Deaglán de Bréadún reports on the conditions the men could face if sent back to finish sentences
Colombia is the heartland of "magic realism", the literary genre associated with the country's most famous writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The term could also be applied to the way of life in that fascinating and beautiful country, where events do not always take the most logical or predictable turn.
Developments around the "Colombia Three" case have often had a fantastic or dreamlike quality that would not be out of place in a magic realist novel. The latest twist is the sudden surprise appearance of the trio on the Irish scene.
Inevitably there have been demands for their extradition, both from the Colombian authorities and opposition politicians here at home. Supporters of the men counter that the human rights situation in Colombia, as well as prison conditions in that country, should preclude any possibility of sending James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly back there to serve out their 17½-year sentences.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Colombian official pointed out at the weekend that the men had been in custody in Colombia for about three years from August 2001 and nothing untoward had happened to them.
As far as the Colombian authorities are concerned, they are fighting to protect their state from the Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas, whom they characterise as terrorists and drug-traffickers. Colombia is pivotal to US interests in the region, especially now that neighbouring Venezuela is ruled by a left-wing neo-Castroite regime led by President Hugo Chavez.
But there is widespread criticism of the human rights situation in Colombia. Front Line, an international organisation to protect human rights defenders with headquarters in Blackrock, Co Dublin, has prepared a special report.
According to this report: "Brutal paramilitary groups - under the command of the United Self-Defence Units of Colombia (AUC) - work symbiotically with the army to protect the interests of various elites including large landowners, drug-traffickers and US-based corporations."
The prison at La Modelo, outside Bogota, where the three men were held for most of their time in Colombia, contains guerrillas of both left and right. The Irishmen were billeted with the left-wing guerrillas but, according to visitors such as Independent TD for Dublin North-Central Finian McGrath, this was "very, very near" the section which housed the right-wing paramilitaries.
Mr McGrath, who visited the prison in late 2002 says: "The men themselves were in a kind of a room, like you would say the size of a double sitting-room in a house, with 43 other prisoners and they were sharing toilet facilities and kitchen areas and all that in one kind of block, but it was overcrowded.
"Number two, it was the whole question of fear and intimidation, there was a sense of fear there the whole time and there was absolutely no safety at all.
"I had a good look around La Modelo and for me it was a hellhole basically," says Mr McGrath. "I wouldn't send a cat back to Colombia on any extradition warrant whatsoever and I do accept the fact that we don't have an extradition treaty with Colombia.
"But in relation to the prison itself, it is probably one of the most dangerous places to be in the whole wide world. It's absolutely appalling, it has a very, very bad track record of deaths, destruction, people being shot, people being murdered in their cells, and you could not send any Irish citizens, regardless of what you think of them, back to a situation like that. It would be unacceptable to any human rights organisation throughout the world."
It should be pointed out that the human rights record of the Farc, the Marxist guerrilla movement the three Irishmen were in contact with, has also been widely criticised. Farc currently holds 63 hostages, including the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt of the Green Party, who was a candidate in the last presidential election and whose husband Juan Carlos Lecompte visited Ireland earlier this year to campaign for her release.
Front Line Director Mary Lawlor says human rights abuses are committed by all sides in the conflict. "The army, guerrillas and paramilitaries commit serious violations - assassinations, massacres, rape of women and some kidnappings.
"'Disappearances' and torture are widespread, impunity is the norm and, in addition, human rights defenders who work against such abuses are also targeted."
Lawyers for the three are understood to have been appealing the lengthy sentences prior to the reappearance of the men in Ireland.
The initial judgment in the case by Judge Acosta and the subsequent appeal were both closely argued, but critics of the process have pointed to a number of public statements by leading political and military figures in Colombia which they said had created a prejudicial atmosphere around the case.
Seemingly this is not unusual in that country, whereas in Ireland such interventions would not be the norm.