Colombia’s prosecution office wants the former campaign manager of the main opposition candidate in the 2014 elections to await his spy trial in jail.
Luis Alfonso Hoyos is hot on the Prosecutor General’s list as the mastermind behind the Andres Sepulveda hacking scandal, and is wanted for conspiring to commit a crime, violating personal data, abusively accessing a computer system and using malicious software and espionage.
Opposition hacker gets 10 years for spying on Colombia peace process
The accused has not attended any scheduled hearings in Colombia since leaving the country at the beginning of 2015, claiming that there were a lack of guarantees available.
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Computer engineer Sepulveda was arrested in May 2014, weeks before the presidential elections, for illegally wiretapping the peace talks between Colombia’s government and FARC guerrilla group in Cuba.
The hacker had been contracted by the Colombian presidential campaign of then-candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga of the Democratic Center Party, led by ex-President and Senator Alvaro Uribe. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April 2015.
The scandal reignited early fears of an apparent alliance between the Colombian political right and active elements of the military to derail ongoing and historic peace talks that began in November 2012.
The former adviser, who was allegedly last seen in a supermarket in Miami in January 2015, has been searching for legal protection in Colombia. In July the Prosecutor General ordered his international arrest.
According to El Pais newspaper, hard evidence has been obtained, proving that the accused is guilty.
This includes a video in which Hoyos is seen entering the RCN television station building with Sepulveda, who is then presented to the head of the news agency as a technology specialist.