Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office ordered the release of two former deputy directors of the Colombian intelligence service DAS, who had been apprehended on wiretapping charges.
Alberto Lagos and Fernando Tabares, former directors of DAS intelligence and counterintelligence, will be released due to proceedings mistakes. The prosecutor’s decision partially nullifies the current criminal investigation against Tabares, Lagos, and twelve more former DAS officials, for allegedly wiretapping the telephones of opposition politicians, journalists, and judges in 2005.
According to the prosecutor, Lagos and Tabares had to be prosecuted under the new criminal accusatory system, not under the old criminal judicial system.
Under new criminal accusatory systems the suspects must be questioned and, if sufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing is found, the prosecutor can issue an arrest warrant. The case then has to go to a supervisory court in preliminary proceedings.
Tabares and Lagos are two of the several DAS official being prosecuted on wiretapping charges.
The illegal wiretapping already forced President Alvaro Uribe to shut down DAS.
On Monday the Prosecutor General denounced that the phones of a Supreme Court magistrate in charge of the ‘parapolitics’ investigations were illegally wiretapped from the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Colombia’s National Police commander, Oscar Naranjo, admitted Tuesday that the phones of Supreme Court magistrate Ivan Velasquez were unjustly wiretapped by police and prosecution investigators.