Panama denied Friday Colombia’s request for the extradition of the former head of Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS who is charged with wiretapping political opponents of the government of former President Alvaro Uribe and the Supreme Court.
Panama’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that “it has reviewed the documentation submitted, and determined that extradition is not feasible in accordance with national legislation and the Bilateral Agreement of Extradition.”
In January of 2012, wiretap victims and their attorney Luis Guillermo Perez traveled to Panama hoping to convince the authorities that the charges against former DAS director Maria del Pilar Hurtado have legal merit.
The former head of the DAS fled to Panama in November 2010 before the Colombian Supreme Court warranted her arrest in 2011. Del Pilar Hurtado is accused of conspiracy, abuse of power, and other charges in the case of a highly controversial wiretapping scandal.
