Colombia hired assassins and spies to 'protect' threatened persons: report

[Judi Lynn]

by Stephen Gill July 23, 2018

Colombia’s National Protection Unit (UNP) has been infiltrated by organized crime and is spying on the people they are supposed to protect, according to local media.

Among the ranks of the UNP is a suspected hitman and kidnapper who has been in charge of the security detail for public officials, congressmen, a land claimant and a trade unionist, the likes of whom have been targeted in a recent wave of violence, news website La Nueva Prensa reported Monday.

The agency and other government bodies were discredited in the beginning of this century after claims they had been infiltrated by paramilitary organization AUC, which carried out most of the killings of people receiving extra state protection.

This time, the special unit has reportedly been infiltrated by a Medellin-based death squad with some members of the UNP accused of sexual harassment and rape, drug trafficking and spying on the very people they are supposed to protest.

. . .

The revelations are alarming as more than 311 social leaders have been assassinated by death squads and assassins since 2016 in a systematic campaign reminiscent of the extermination of the left-wing Patriotic Union party in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Far-right group Aguilas Negras recently vowed to “exterminate” all Colombia’s human rights defenders and social leaders, calling them “guerrillas in disguise.”

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-hired-assassins-and-spies-to-protect-threatened-persons-report/