6 July 2007

Alert

Senior intelligence chiefs suspended or resign over scandal on tapping of journalists' and politicians' telephones


Incident details

journalist(s)

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(RSF/IFEX) - On 25 June 2007, the Colombian authorities announced the suspension for three months of five senior police and intelligence officials suspected of illegally tapping the telephones of journalists, opposition politicians and even current government officials.

Those sanctioned include the director of intelligence operations and the director of counter-espionage. A third intelligence chief, Gen. Guillermo Chávez Ocaña, the head of the Police Intelligence Directorate (Dipol), resigned immediately after the scandal was revealed by defence minister Juan Manuel Santos on 14 May, a day after the weekly magazine "Semana" published the transcripts of phone taps showing that paramilitary chiefs held in Itagüi prison ran criminal operations from their cells.



Source:

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
@rsf_rwb
 

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More on this case

Journalists' telephone lines illegally tapped by national police; CPJ fears chilling effect 16 May 2007

Colombia

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