Three Irishmen arrested in Colombia on August 11th have been moved to a Colombian high-security jail over fears for their safety.
Mr Niall Connolly, Mr Martin McCauley and Mr James Monaghan have been transferred from La Modelo federal prison to a jail run by Colombia's judicial police force in Bogota .
Authorities moved the men following pressure from their lawyer, Mr Ernesto Amezquita, who said they were at risk of being killed by enemies of left-wing guerrillas inside the Bogota prison.
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Deadly riots and clashes are common in Colombia's prisons, which hold an explosive brew of left-wing guerrillas and members of a rival right-wing paramilitary army.
The Irish trio have been accused of providing training in explosives and terrorist tactics to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation's largest rebel army known as the FARC.
US diplomat Mr Richard Haass will raise the arrest of three suspected IRA men in Colombia when he meets Sinn Féin leaders later this week, he said today.
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Mr Richard Haass
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The US government was "extremely disturbed" about the arrests, said the President Bush's special envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Mr Haass was speaking after a meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid in London at the start of a visit that will also take him to Dublin and Belfast.
"I will be bringing up the situation in Colombia," the diplomat said.
"We have got hundreds of Americans on the ground there. We have put in hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to help that country battle the insurrection, drug trafficking and so forth.
"So any co-operation with people in Colombia who are challenging the law, promoting the sale of drugs, is to the US extremely, extremely disturbing," Mr Haas said.