Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS infiltrated the Bogota embassies of Cuba, Venezuela, and various Middle East countries with the knowledge of the CIA, a former DAS official testified Thursday.
According to former DAS investigator German Albeiro Ospina, the operations were ordered by former DAS director Maria del Pilar Hurtado and coordinated by captain Jorge Alberto Lagos.
“They ordered that operations be organized and accomplished for the government, regarding countries and persons that were of national interest,” Ospina testified to prosecutors.
“I am talking about surveillance, shadowing, infiltration and penetration of the embassies of these governments,” the former official said.
Reports on the infiltrations were sent to the presidency, the government’s high commissioner for peace, the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and high ranking military officials, Ospina added.
Over the past few months Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has arrested several high DAS officials in the course of investigations into the illegal wiretapping of the country’s Supreme Court, opposition politicians, and human rights organizations.
