The Colombia Three should be forced to return to South America because the training they provided to FARC guerrillas led to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, the country’s Vice President has claimed.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderon said that the government is doing all in its power to have the three republicans returned to South America to face justice.

He also said that he has nothing more to say to Education Minister Caitriona Ruane who had spearheaded the ‘Bring Them Home’ campaign.

Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan were sentenced to 17 years in a Colombian jail for teaching IRA bombmaking techniques to Colombian Marxist guerrillas, but fled back to Ireland.

Mr Santos however said that the Colombian government is hoping to soon have the trio returned to serve their sentence.

“They have been sentenced to 17 years in jail because they trained the FARC in explosives and the using of explosives,” he said. “As a matter of fact their training produced afterwards some bombing incidents that killed many, many Colombians.

“We hadn’t seen those types of missiles [now being used by FARC] before in Colombia. We saw them in Colombia after those men were captured. They taught FARC new bombing technology that we had never seen.

“We definitely want them back. We will keep pushing for that. They have to pay a debt to society. They helped kill many Colombians — thousands maybe — with the technology that they taught the FARC.

“The FARC is not child’s game. They use explosives massively and they learnt how to do it better with the training they got so I hope someday soon those guys are going to end up in jail again and pay their sentence — 17 years. They did a lot of damage.”

At the time Sinn Fein’s Caitriona Ruane travelled to South America to campaign on behalf of the three men. Mr Santos, who is currently in Northern Ireland as a guest speaker at the 2008 ACPO drugs conference, said that he met with the MLA on several occasions in Colombia but that he has no intention of meeting her again to discuss the case.

“No, no, no. It is not the nature of this trip but with the situation now I don’t think there is much to say.”

Mr Santos also told the Telegraph he does not believe there are any remaining links with FARC rebels — who are the biggest drugs cartels in Colombia — and local paramilitary groups.

“I don’t think links are still there, because they got caught. If they had not got caught I don’t know if that relationship would have been maintained. There is ideological affinity, certainly. Was there money being changed hands? Certainly.

“The good thing is that they were exposed, that they got caught, that they were sent to jail. The bad thing is that they fled the country and were helped by some people.

“There is no evidence of any other links between FARC and any other groups in Ireland at this precise moment. There is evidence of links between FARC and ETA. They have been working with them to do some assassinations in Europe of some Colombian officials, including me, but so far there is no more evidence of them having contact with the IRA.”

The Colombia Three were arrested in August 2001 for travelling on false passports at Bogota International Airport while waiting to transfer to international flights out of the country.

The Colombian government claimed that the trio, who deny being IRA members, travelled to a demilitarised southern jungle zone ceded to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during failed peace negotiations, where they instructed the guerrillas in how to make improvised IRA-style bombs and mortar rounds.

Prosecutors failed in the original trial to prove the men were doing anything illegal beyond carrying false passports. They admitted to meeting the FARC and spending several weeks near a large guerrilla camp. But they said that they were there as eco-tourists and to learn more about the peace talks.

However, the Supreme Tribunal in Bogota later overturned the lower court’s acquittal of the men on terror charges and issued an order for their immediate arrest, handing out prison terms of 17 years and fines of more than £100,000. The trio had fled the country while on bail awaiting the appeal.