Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS made an alliance with the paramilitary organization AUC in the 2004 murder of a trade union representative, a court ruled.
The court’s decision is the first that directly states an alliance between the AUC and DAS and was handed down March 30, 2011 at the conviction of extradited paramilitary leader “Jorge 40” who commanded the AUC’s Northern bloc. a human rights lawyer told newspaper El Tiempo.
According to Alvaro Cordova of the Trade Union Institute of Cooperation Development (ISCOD) and human rights NGO CODHES, the ruling is a “milestone in judicial reality of Colombia.”
Alfredo Correa de Andreis, a sociologist and professor at the northern universities of Atlantico and Simon Bolivar was murdered after being released from a month long detention by police for allegedly being the FARC guerrilla alias “Eulogio.” According to the courts, with lack of evidence the court released Correa and upon his release he was killed by Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias “Jorge 40,” and his bodyguard with the participation of intelligence agency DAS.
The statement that the Bogota court handed down during the conviction of Jorge 40 showed, “That the motive for the assassination was associated to a strange criminal investigation that the 33 Prosecutor of Cartagena had followed Correa de Andreis for the crime of rebellion, based on a judicial assembly orchestrated by members of DAS,” reported El Tiempo.
The statement continues, “Under the direction of Jorge Noguera – director of DAS between 2002 and 2005-,” it is “proposed that high officials from DAS discretely collaborated with the AUC, in particular with the Nothern bloc led by Jorge 40.”
“It is appropriate to acknowledge that it is not simply isolated subjects that simply undertook a crime against the trade union movement … the assassination against trade unionists in Colombia operates and has operated with the collaboration of state agents at high levels,” said Cordoba.
Alirio Uribe, a lawyer for the victims in the case against former DAS leader Jorge Noguera reported to El Tiempo that both the former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and the United States were aware of such cooperation which he says provided hit lists to Jorge 40 as well as databases on the profiles of trade unionists.
In March, the Colombian government reclaimed land that Jorge 40’s Northern bloc had stolen from peasants in the northern Magdalena department.
During testimony in April, former deputy director of counter intelligence for DAS, Jorge Alberto Lagos, said that when he reviewed the organization in 2007, he discovered that paramilitaries had infiltrated all areas and positions, above all during the directorship of Jorge Noguera.