The intelligence director for Colombia’s spy
service has resigned in the wake of a wire-tapping scandal that has
rocked the DAS from top to bottom.
DAS director Felipe Muñoz said Thursday he
had accepted Fernando Taberes’ resignation, making him the fourth
senior official in Colombia’s intelligence agency that has left the
institution at the center of two wiretapping scandals in the last six
months.
Muñoz, talking to journalists following a press conference of President Álvaro Uribe, said he agreed to a meeting with National Police Director Oscar Naranjo and the Prosecutor General Investigation’s Director Marilú Méndez about the Government decision to no longer allow the DAS to intercept phonecalls without Police authorization.
The DAS director acknowledged that “there are USB sticks and cd’s that have some evidence stored” of the illegal wiretapping of Supreme Court magistrates, media directors and opposition politicians.
Muñoz said he will inform U.S. ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield about the progress of the investigations.
The wiretap scandal comes at the time that Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez are in Washington to convince the Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress that Colombia is improving its human rights record.
Colombia seeks the approval of a free trade pact between the U.S. and Colombia and a continuation of Plan Colombia, a multi-billion joint operation to fight leftist rebel and drug trafficking.
