Democratic Unionist Party MEP Jim Allister has demanded answers regarding the employment history of one of the Colombian Three terror gang, James Monaghan. Mr. Allister has uncovered that Monaghan was between 1999 and 2000 in the paid employ of a group which receives substantial amounts of funding through the PEACE II programme. 

Speaking today, Jim Allister said, “When speaking during a court appearance in Colombia, James Monaghan stated “In 1999/2000 I was granted a position with Coiste. It was a full-time paid position. I was the Director of a new sub-unit in Dublin called Tar Isteach”.

Serious questions have now been raised by the discovery that James Monaghan, one of the on the run terrorists known as The Colombian Three was between 1999 and 2000 in the paid employ of Coiste na n-Larchimi, a republican prisoners group which receives enormous amounts of money from the European Union programme for Peace and Reconciliation.

The notion that a man who has been convicted of training the most violent narco-terrorists in South America should reap pecuniary benefit from the PEACE programme is an insult to the people of Northern Ireland. Having said that, if proven to be the case, it will serve to underline the reasoning behind Unionist concerns about the impartiality of the programme.

I am therefore demanding answers, both from the republican prisoners group named by Mr. Monaghan and by the Peace funding bodies. Firstly, will the republican prisoners group confirm Mr. Monaghan’s claim to be in their full-time employ? Secondly when did Mr. Monaghan cease to be receiving payment from them, was it before or after his arrest in Colombia on charges of training the FARC? From the various funding bodies that have funded this group, the public have a right to know what proportion of Mr. Monaghan’s salary came from PEACE money? If it is proven that Mr. Monaghan has reaped financial benefit from the PEACE programme it is a national disgrace. The time has come for a moratorium on funding for prisoners groups.”