A key witness for the prosecution in the case of three Irish men detained in Colombia last August left the witness protection programme last week, and his whereabouts are unknown, a Colombian newspaper reported yesterday.
The unidentified witness is a former police inspector who presented himself to the public prosecutor's office last August, after seeing photos of the three suspects in a newspaper.
"I recognised one of them," he told investigators. "I saw him in August 1998 before the free zone was declared," a reference to a slice of territory ceded by the Colombian government to FARC rebels as an incentive to join peace talks in 1999.
The news of the disappeared witness emerged on the same day that Mr Ernesto Amezquita, the first lawyer to represent the three detained Irish men, fled Colombia, after receiving numerous death threats from right-wing paramilitaries, who accused him of "aiding international terrorists."
FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been at war with the Colombian state since 1964. The on-off peace process has drifted aimlessly of late, as rebels continue to kidnap civilians and army units continue to aid right-wing paramilitaries.
The missing witness told state authorities that he witnessed one of the Irish suspects heading toward a place called Donde Robert in the company of a FARC rebel commander known as Julian. "I know they were heading in to see Marulanda FARC's maximum leader because back then, before the peace process began, it was well known that anyone heading toward Donde Robert was on their way to meet Marulanda."
The former police inspector also recounted an alleged conversation with a FARC rebel identified as Laurentino, in which the rebel allegedly confirmed that he too had seen the foreigner in question inside the rebel zone.