Ex-chief of Colombia secret police freed

[Judi Lynn]

Jun 11, 8:26 PM EDT
Ex-chief of Colombia secret police freed

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's Supreme Court has ruled that a former head of the secret police facing charges of working with far-right death squads should be set free.

The court is calling for Jorge Noguera's immediate release because prosecutors failed to properly file charges against him.

Noguera was arrested in February 2007 and was the highest-ranking government official to be tried on links to the far-right paramilitaries. He was Colombia's intelligence director for 2002 to 2005.

It was unclear if prosecutors would refile charges against Noguera.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLOMBIA_SECRET_POLICE_CHIEF?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-06-11-20-26-40

[Judi Lynn]

1. Dirty Jorge Noguera's criminal history

Jorge Noguera

April 13, 2006
The DAS scandals
If you’ve ever traveled to Colombia, then you’ve seen the DAS, the government’s Administrative Department for Security. As soon as you get off the plane, DAS employees are there to stamp your passport and, perhaps, to ask why you’re visiting.

The DAS does much more than stamp passports, though. It is a powerful agency, a sort of “secret police” institution founded in 1960. Its principal purpose is intelligence and counterintelligence, both domestic and international. However, it is also a law enforcement body whose agents have judicial police powers – they investigate crimes and can arrest and interrogate people. The DAS also provides bodyguards and security services for high government officials and other people at risk.

To someone familiar with the U.S. government, the DAS is a strange beast. It incorporates aspects of the FBI, the CIA, and the ICE (immigration). Plus, it is not part of any cabinet ministry like Defense or Interior – it is a part of the Colombian president’s office.

If you think this arrangement seems like a recipe for disaster, you’re right. Disaster has struck with a vengeance during Álvaro Uribe’s administration. According to recent reports in Colombia’s media and testimony from former officials, between 2002 and 2005 the DAS was essentially at the service of paramilitaries and major narcotraffickers. It drew up hitlists of union members and leftist activists, and even plotted to destabilize Venezuela.

All of this happened under the tenure of Jorge Noguera, Uribe’s DAS director from August 2002 until he left under a major storm cloud of scandal in October 2005. According to Rafael García, the agency’s former chief of information systems who has made a series of explosive allegations, “Jorge Noguera became the Vladimiro Montesinos of Alvaro Uribe’s government. He conspired against the governments of neighboring countries, he did away with leftist leaders, he participated in narcotrafficking operations, he maintained relations with paramilitary groups, etc. etc.”

More:
http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/blog/archives/000242.htm

[Judi Lynn]

2. Jorge Noguera plotted the assassination of Hugo Chavez.

A dark underbelly of mass graves and electoral fraud
Congress is questioning a Latin American policy that has left
George Bush with a best friend who is a major embarrassment

Isabel Hilton The Guardian, Thursday March 8 2007

~snip~
But the most dangerous scandal for Uribe comes from the arrest of Jorge Noguera, his former campaign manager and, from 2002 to 2005, head of the DAS. Former DAS colleagues have told investigators of Noguera's close collaboration with Jorge 40 - which included lending him Uribe's personal armoured vehicle - and with other paramilitary leaders. The accusations include an assassination plot against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the murder of political opponents, electoral fraud, doctoring police and judicial records to erase paramilitary cases. Noguera worked directly to Uribe and when the investigations began, the president appointed him consul in Milan. The supreme court has forced his return.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/08/comment.usa

[Judi Lynn]

3. Another reference to Noguera's plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez, etc.

COLOMBIA: WASHINGTON & THE PARA SCANDAL
What is Behind Bush's Andean "Anti-Terrorist" Strategy?

by Julian Monroy, WW4 REPORT

~snip~
The apparent infiltration of the paramilitaries in Colombia's congress is not the first scandal. The former Attorney General (Fiscal), Luis Camilo Osorio, left his job in the end of 2005 under charges he had allowed paramilitary infiltration of the office.

A similar scandal occurred when the director of the primary government intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) Jorge Noguera faced charges of collaboration with the AUC. The allegations were made by a former DAS senior official, Rafael García, whowas under investigation for laundering money and erasing the records of several people from the DAS database. According to García's statements to prosecutors and reporters, for approximately three years the DAS worked in close collaboration with several paramilitary gangs, particularly the "Northern Bloc" led by Jorge 40. Garcia charged that the DAS provided the paramilitaries with lists of labor union leaders and academics, many of whom were subsequently threatened or killed. He also said Noguera collaborated with the paramilitaries to carry out massive electoral fraud when he was Uribe's campaign director in Magdalena state during the 2002 presidential elections—resulting in 300,000 additional votes for Uribe. He also charged that DAS collaborated with paramilitaries in a plot to assassinate several Venezuelan leaders, including President Hugo Chavez and a prosecutor, Danilo Anderson, who was in fact killed in November 2004. Based on testimony of one of some 100 alleged Colombian paramilitaries those arrested in Caracas, Venezuelan authorities have charged Noguera with in the Anderson case.

Noguera had to resign in October 2005, but later he was awarded an appointment as Colombian consul in Milan—where he finally resigned again, in the midst of more scandals and media pressure. Uribe responded to the revelations by accusing the Colombian news media of being dishonest and malicious, and with harming Colombian democratic institutions.

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/2976

[magbana]

4. Great Info and Background. Thanks, Judi

[Judi Lynn]

5. Court cancels parapolitics trial former DAS director

Court cancels parapolitics trial former DAS director
June 11th, 2008 ·

The Criminal Division of Colombia’s Supreme Court ordered the immediate release Wednesday of the former director of Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS, because of irregularities in the process, Colombian newspaper El Espectador reports.

According to the Court the trial will be canceled, because the official accusation against Jorge Noguera wasn’t made by the Chief Prosecutor Mario Iguarán, but his assistent.

The Court immediately demanded the irregularities to be investigated. It was unclear if the prosecution would refile charges against Noguera.

Noguera was arrested in February 2007 and was the highest-ranking government official to be tried on links to the far-right paramilitaries. He was Colombia’s intelligence director for 2002 to 2005.

http://colombiareports.com/2008/06/11/parapolitics-trial-against-former-das-director-cancelled/