Colombian intelligence agency DAS knew of FARC plans to bomb radio station Caracol’s Bogota office in 2008, newspaper El Espectador reported Wednesday. A car bomb exploded in front of the building on August 12 this year.
According to the newspaper’s website, a suspect in the case against the intelligence agency for illegal wiretapping told investigators that the agency received information about a planned car bomb attack against the radio station.
El Espectador cited parts of a testimony given by DAS official Marta Leal, who was asked by a prosecutor about e-mails found regarding an imminent attack on the radio station.
According to Leal’s testimony she contacted the head of security of Caracol in 2008 “in regards to information I had received about a possible car bomb attack at the office of Caracol.”
Leal told the prosecutor that the FARC planned to leave a car bomb inside the Caracol building. One of the guards of the office building had been contacted and offered money to take part in the attack.
A car bomb was left outside the station in August this year, causing no injuries, but millions of dollars worth of damage.
Police commissioner General Oscar Naranjo said after the attack that the police had not received intelligence on any potential terrorist attack against Caracol for months, “if not years,” downplaying suggestions that the station was the target of the bomb.
In a response to the new revelations, DAS director Felipe Muñoz told W Radio that the 2008 investigation is not related to the recent attack and that that case has been closed.
The August 12 car bomb attack was the first large-scale terrorist attack since the inauguration of President Juan Manuel Santos.