Former paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna,” and the drug trafficker Juan Carlos Sierra, “El Tuso Sierra,” will testify against a former DAS director and the chief of staff to former President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s prosecutor general announced.
According to Colombian media, Prosecutor General Viviane Morales did not give an explanation as to what value the testimonies of Don Berna and Tuso Sierra would have in the case. Both convicted criminals were extradited to the United States in 2008.
The trial of former DAS director Maria del Pilar Hurtado and former chief of staff Bernardo Moreno begins Thursday. The two are on trial for allegedly spying on supreme court judges, journalists, human rights workers, and opposing politicians.
Both officials will be officially charged with conspiracy, the illegal interception of communication, abuse of public power, and fraud.
In addition, del Pilar Hurtado will also be charged with embezzlement and falsifying a public document.
This is not the first time Don Berna has testified against a former DAS director. In early 2011, he testified that a former deputy director of DAS was a member of the paramilitary organization AUC and “gave information [to Don Berna] about operations against the paramilitaries or persons who had links to the guerrillas or the left.”