Sinn Fein has moved to distance the republican movement from the latest allegations circulating in Colombia, where IRA bomb techniques are believed to have been adopted by left wing terrorists.

Colombia's prosecutor general has claimed that hundreds of people have been killed by terrorists using mortar bombs previously used by the IRA.

Sinn Fein's chairman, Mitchel McLaughlin, said such remarks prejudiced the chances of the three Irish republicans, arrested a year ago and currently held in a Colombian jail, from receiving a fair trial.