Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office Tuesday released more details on how the DAS security agency will be assimilated into that office and the DAS’ successor, the Central Intelligence Agency.
As part of the bill currently pending in Colombia’s congress to create a new intelligence agency, the DAS Director Felipe Muñoz Gomez and Prosecutor General Guillermo Mendoza Diago signed an agreement to define how the Prosecutor General’s Office would assume functions formerly held by the DAS, according to an official government website.
In the transfer, about 30 percent of current DAS officials, “who have valued experience and expertise, and want to move,” will become part of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the website reported.
The DAS is Colombia’s immigration service and intelligence agency. Three of its directors and dozens of high-ranking officials are currently under criminal investigation after numerous scandals involving paramilitary infiltration and the illegal wiretapping of government opponents. Colombia’s Congress is reviewing the government proposals for a new intelligence agency.
Amidst the confusion of the transfer grew worries of layoffs or massive firings of personnel, despite government assurances that many will either keep their jobs or be offered new positions in other state security agencies.
The legislation will also seek assurances that the Prosecutor’s Office will be able to assume the workload created by the abolition of the scandal-ridden DAS.
