A Spanish judge opened an investigation against Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe for his alleged role in the illegal wiretapping of Spanish NGOs, Noticias Uno reported on Sunday.
The NGOs accuse Uribe and several officials of Colombian state intelligence agency DAS of spying on human rights workers on Spanish territory.
According to Noticias Uno, the lawsuit is based on documents by Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgium in November opened an investigation for the same reason.
According to the PG documents, the DAS spied on European NGOs and even the European Parliament as part of “Operation Europe,” which was intended to find information to delegitimize the work of Europeans who worked for human rights in Colombia.
Following the publicizing of the wiretap scandal, Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe, who is under investigation for involvement in the illegal wiretapping, was forced to start the procedure of dismantling the disgraced intelligence agency. Several former intelligence officials have made plea arrangements with Colombian justice and the country’s inspector general barred several of the service’s directors and Uribe’s former chief of staff from holding public office.
