BOGOTA.- A scandal over the course illegal espionage on judges of the Constitutional Court splashes the government of Colombia, whose President, Gustavo Petrodenied this Monday using the intelligence services for these purposes.
Over the weekend, Semana magazine revealed that Judge Jorge Enrique Ibáñez filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office because allegedly “State intelligence agencies” intercepted his communications.
Petro denied these allegations through the social network
Ibáñez assures that some of his assistant magistrates have also been intercepted and does not rule out that other of his colleagues in the Constitutional Court are being equally affected.
The Prosecutor’s Office announced the opening of an investigation into the alleged “chuzadas”, as they are known in Colombia to interceptions.
Control over the Court
“For several months now, my communications, especially my cell phone, have been tapped (…) outside the legal frameworks,” Ibáñez wrote in a letter addressed to the attorney general, Luz Adriana Camargo, and leaked by Semana.
In his defense, Petro assures that the National Intelligence Department (DNI) “does not even have devices to intercept private telephone services.” However, the Presidency announced an “internal investigation.”
Semana magazine assures that a general confirmed under anonymity “that such interceptions have indeed been made.”
The complaints against the government occur at a time when Petro insists on the idea of calling an assembly to modify the Constitution.
What’s behind the “chuzadas”
The opposition claims that the president is trying to bypass the power of the high courts.
He former president Iván Duque (2018-2022), for example, maintains that Petro wants to control the Constitutional Court to endorse a change in the Magna Carta and thus extend his mandate beyond August 2026. Currently the law prohibits re-election.
In February, government supporters blocked the surroundings of the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice when its judges had to elect a new attorney general from a shortlist presented by the president. The judges of the highest court denounced a “siege” by the protesters.
In the past, the intelligence services have been accused of “hunting” left-wing politicians, representatives of social organizations, journalists and also judges of the Supreme Court of Justice.
The possible espionage would be a paradox for Petro, since in 2020 a court determined that the defunct Administrative Department of Security (DAS) carried out illegal wiretapping against him between 2006 and 2009, when he was an opposition senator.
Inspection
This Monday a new chapter opened in another scandal over alleged government espionage: The Military and Police Criminal Prosecutor General’s Office reported in a statement that it carried out a judicial inspection at the Casa de Nariño, the seat of government in Bogotá.
The agents searched for “probative material and physical evidence” in the framework of an investigation into the alleged illegal eavesdropping last year on Marelbys Meza, nanny of the president’s right-hand woman, Laura Sarabia.
After the theft of a briefcase with thousands of dollars from Sarabia’s house, Meza ended up interrogated with a polygraph at the presidential headquarters and then was the victim of interceptions of her telephone conversations, apparently with the permission of the Petro government.
The Executive made use of a false police report that linked it to drug traffickers, as revealed by the prosecutor’s office in mid-2023. The case remains unclarified.
Sarabia, who served as Petro’s chief of staff, left her position weeks after those revelations, but last February she was appointed to head the Department of Social Prosperity, an entity that manages a vast state budget.
Source: With information from AFP
