Colombia to Dismantle Spy Agency
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Amid a scandal
involving illegal spying on government
critics, Colombia’s domestic intelligence
agency will be dismantled and a new agency
will be set up to focus on intelligence and
counterintelligence work involving national
security, the agency’s director said Friday.
The director, Felipe Muñoz, said the
majority of the current agency’s 6,000
employees would be transferred to the
criminal investigative unit of the police
and other investigative bodies.
On Thursday, President Álvaro Uribe said for
the first time that he favored eliminating
the spy agency, known as the DAS. He
previously spoke of the need to restructure
the troubled department.
The agency has been enmeshed in controversy
over accusations that it used wiretaps to
spy on government critics, judges and
journalists. Mr. Uribe’s government, the
United States’ main ally in South America,
denied ordering the wiretaps.
Mr. Muñoz said the administration would
submit legislation to the Colombian Congress
to authorize the president “to eliminate the
present structure” of the agency. He said a
new department would take over intelligence
and counterintelligence.
The domestic spy agency was created in 1953
and reconstructed as the DAS in 1960. The
wiretapping scandal involved allegations of
illegal surveillance of human rights
activists, reporters and magistrates of the
Supreme Court of Justice. Mr. Uribe’s first
DAS director, Jorge Noguera, is in prison
awaiting trial on charges including murder;
he is accused of helping right-wing death
squads assassinate three union leaders and a
sociologist.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
