64th General Assembly, Madrid, Spain, October 3 - 7, 2008: According to a report by the Foundation for Press Freedom Claudia Julieta Duque has relinquished the protection she had been provided by the Interior Ministry since December 2003. A journalist with the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Group, she complained that her bodyguards were providing detailed information about her movements to officials of the Security Administrative Department (DAS). Duque has been the recipient of threats and been followed since 2001 as a result of her investigation into the August 13, 1999 murder of journalist Jaime Garzón in Bogotá.
Midyear Meeting, Asuncion, Paraguay, March 13 to 16, 2009: Semana magazine reported on illegal phone taps systematically and selectively conducted by the DAS against judges, political leaders, and journalists. According to the magazine’s source, the phone taps on the journalists — most of them editors or directors of media outlets — were aimed at intimidating them, getting them to identify their sources, and finding out their editorial line.
Government officials again criticized the work of journalists on several occasions, especially in response to reports scrutinizing the work of public officials or political figures. Presidential adviser José Obdulio Gaviria accused journalists of paying for confidential information and said it was a crime for them to publish material they obtained through their investigative work. Semana magazine described the adviser’s words as part of a “Machiavellian smear campaign.”
65th General Assembly, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 6 - 10, 2009: In the view of reporters and some columnists, stigmatization and pronouncements by officials, members of the government and its advisors have become means to thwart exposure of corruption. Illegal telephone wiretapping reported in the previous period carried out by the Administrative Security Department (DAS), an agency of the Presidency, against journalists, Supreme Court justices and members of the opposition continued to be a matter of concern for the effects they have on keeping the identity of sources confidential and on the safety of reporters.
Midyear Meeting, Oranjestad, Aruba, March 19 - 22, 2010: In December (2009) it was learned of the existence of a manual said to have been drawn up by the Administrative Security Department (DAS) on how to tail journalists, among them Claudia Julieta Duque, an investigator with the José Alvear Bar Association. The document, discovered in raids ordered by the Attorney General’s Office during an investigation into unlawful wiretapping of judges, opposition leaders and journalists, contained Duque’s personal details, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The book also explained how to threaten her, telling her that her daughter, who at the time was 10 years old, could be raped and burned alive.
66th General Assembly, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, November 5 - 9, 2010: In the judicial sphere, investigations continue into illegal intercepts of journalists’, judges’, and politicians’ communications. For his responsibility in the so-called “chuzada” scandal, the former Judicial Secretary of President Bernardo Moreno was prohibited from exercising public functions for 18 years by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Colombia. He was also interrogated by the Prosecutor as part of the criminal investigation that has been progressing to allocate responsibility for these illegal procedures.
The former directors of the Administrative Department of Security, the DAS, Jorge Aurelio Noguera Cotes, María del Pilar Hurtado, and Andrés Peñate, were called in for questioning by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Colombia to establish whether or not they were part of what the Prosecutors called a “criminal platform” to obtain information on high court judges, journalists, opposition leaders, and defenders of human rights. These workers had already been sanctioned by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Colombia by their removal and prohibition against holding any government position.
On the other hand, the former sub-director of the DAS, Jorge Alberto Lagos, is the first to be sentenced in the cases of the illegal intercepts, after accepting the charges against him and coming to a plea bargain with the Prosecutors’ Office that was approved by the Court of Bogotá. Lagos will spend eight years in jail, since he obtained a reduction of one third of his sentence for cooperating with the police by accepting that “without legal reason nor any motive of intelligence” he had ordered and coordinated the tailing of journalists, judges, and other persons. Lagos also was removed by the Prosecutor’s Office and prohibited from holding any government position.
Finally within the same case of illegal intercepts, the former director of the Special Administrative Unit on Analysis of Financial Information (Uiaf) Mario Aranguren, is under arrest for having submitted DAS financial reports containing confidential and exclusive information on judges and journalists, without a court order. Aranguren was also removed and prohibited from holding a government position by the Prosecutor’s Office.
