Edited sentence: An alleged FARC deserter claimed to have seen the men training guerrillas on dates in 1999 and 2000.For example, Jim Monaghan had been filmed speaking at a conference in Belfast.He concluded that FARC weaponry was of a much more sophisticated nature than the IRA’s.In Bogota Borer testified, “that the weaponry used by the IRA and FARC are vastly different, having to do with the diameter of the mortars, the different types of propellants used and different types of detonating devices.In relation to the allegation that the IRA had passed on its technology to FARC the court heard from one of the foremost forensic scientists in Britain, Dr Keith Borer, who in the past has acted in prosecution cases against Irish republicans in British trials.Lawyers for the defendants produced evidence that the men were elsewhere.Niall Connolly was proven to have been translating at an Irish Embassy dinner in Havana, Cuba.The US embassy official, Anthony Hall, was not called to give evidence.The men pleaded guilty to a passports offence and in statements to the court explained that because of harassment Irish republicans (two of them, Jim Monaghan and Martin McAuley are former prisoners) often travelled under false documentation.The trial itself proved something of a farce with prosecution witnesses initially refusing to testify.Their testimony, when it was given, was rubbished.They had gone to Colombia to study the peace process, they said