Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s office called twenty officials of
intelligence agency DAS to give testimony about the alleged wiretapping
of opposition politicians, supreme court judges and media chiefs.
Investigators meanwhile are turning DAS offices upside down looking for
evidence.
The revelations of DAS investigators that political enemies of the government had been subject to illegal wiretaps and investigations, caused a political storm in Colombia.
The Supreme Court, whose president and the magistrate in charge of the investigation of congressmen with paramilitary links allegedly were bugged, demanded that the Prosecutor General came up with results quick.
President Álvaro Uribe, who only wanted to respond to the scandal through a letter, denied he ever gave orders to bug the phones of his political opponents. According to several ministers, the mafia is behind the phone taps.
Investigators of the Prosecutor General’s office are now going through records of the DAS to find traces of illegal practices.
According to the DAS officials in the Semana article, most of the evidence already has been destroyed, but some would have survived the clean up operation.
So far, only one high DAS official has been forced to resign, but intelligence director Felipe Muñoz says he is studying mroe resignations.
