Victims of illegal wiretapping by Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS announced Sunday they will sue Panama for granting political asylum to DAS director Maria Del Pilar Hurtado, who is charged with ordering the wiretaps.
The attorney of the victims that include prominent opposition politicians, journalists and supreme court magistrates, told Radio RCN that he will sue the State of Panama before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights for “harming the rights [of the victims] to truth, to justice and to compensation regarding crimes that we consider war crimes.”
Lawyer Luis Guillermo Perez said he will file the lawsuit on Tuesday, immediately after a judge rules on the arrest warrant issued by Colombian Prosecutor General Viviane Morales for Del Pilar Hurtado and former president Alvaro Uribe’s chief of staff Bernardo Moreno.
Del Pilar Hurtado fled Colombia late 2010 and was granted political asylum by the country’s government under severe criticism of victims of the wiretap scandal and the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office.