TROUBLE ABROAD

The ‘Colombia Three’ were arrested at Bogotá International Airport in 2001 when authorities alleged that they were travelling on false passports, were members of the IRA and were training FARC rebels. Initially convicted only on the passport offence, a judge ordered their release upon payment of fines. However, the prosecution appealed the verdict, and the appeal court convicted the men of training the rebels, sentencing them to 17 years in jail in December 2004. The day after their conviction, the men fled Colombia for Ireland.

Irish nanny Aisling Brady McCarthy spent 27 months in a US prison insisting on her innocence after she was charged with assault and later murder in the first degree, over the death of oneyear-old Rehma Sabir in January 2013, before charges against her were dropped and she returned home.

Dublin-based German IT worker Daniel Belling spent 14 months in custody in Regina Coeli prison in Rome in 2017, in connection with the disappearance of his Chinese wife Xiang Lei Li during a 10-day cruise the couple took. Belling, who returned to Ireland in April 2018, insists he is innocent and his wife ran away.