Ex-chief of Colombia secret police freed

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

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.



Read 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

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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]

1. 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



Jorge Noguera. Bottom, political cartoon Uribe with death squad (paramilitary) chainsaw

[Make7]

2. RE: "... prosecutors failed to properly file charges against him."

I wish there was a more detailed explanation regarding how the charges were not filed properly. Did they forget to dot an i or cross a t? Or was there actually some significant error?

Either way, I would be disappointed if the charges were not refiled. Not necessarily surprised, but disappointed nonetheless. The people working on these cases are certainly more courageous than I am - I hope they remain safe and achieve success in all that they do.

-Make7

[Judi Lynn]

4. It may take a while before it's possible to get the straight story on this.

I found a story from "The Spectator," in Colombia, as translated by google, but the translation is so inadequate it's impossible to understand what it means.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo-ordenana-libertat-de-jorge-noguera-ex-director-del-das&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DEl%2BEspectador%2Bcolombia%2BJorge%2BNoguera%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26rls%3DGGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en

The smug, nasty little pig face of Noguera is surely irritating enough:



It says that this is the third time a prosecution against him has failed. Looks very much like the administration intends for him to beat the charges.

If I find a word which throws some light on what's happening I'll post it.

[Make7]

9. In March of 2007...

 

Incredibly, Noguera was let out of jail in March [2007] on the barest of technicalities. (A document that should have been signed by the Prosecutor-General was signed instead by one of his top deputies.) Despite the seriousness of the charges against him, which caused the U.S. government to revoke his visa earlier this year, Noguera is a free man right now.

http://www.cipcol.org/?p=405

According to this current BBC Spanish article (google translation):

June 12, 2008

... According to the Supreme [Court,] Noguera should have been investigated and accused by the Prosecutor General's Office and not by one of its prosecutors, as happened in some moments of the process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_7449000/7449815.stm  (google translation)

Which sounds to me like it is still an issue of determining which official/department has the legal authority to prosecute these charges. I guess the good news is that these technicalities do not protect him from prosecution, the charges can be refiled in a manner to rectify this particular technical issue.

It doesn't really seem like there should be that much ambiguity in who exactly has the proper authority to proceed. Perhaps the people in that position are less than willing to proceed - requiring others to try any means necessary to get some justice.

-Make7

[Judi Lynn]

8. This seems to be the problem with the prosecution:

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/

(I don't know much about law, but this seems odd, doesn't it?)

[Make7]

10. It does seem odd.

Perhaps there is something larger than the case at work here.

Or perhaps their law system is overly technical and even the prosecutors can't figure out who has the proper authority to prosecute the case. One would think they would have been careful to sort it all out after the 2007 release and refiling of charges. It's almost like the top people are making things more complicated than they need to be.

-Make7

[Judi Lynn]

3. More info. on George Bush's puppet Uribe's intelligence chief:

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

[Peace Patriot]

5. Uribe (or the Bush Junta on his behalf) got to the judge?

This is an odd development. And there is likely something very wrong here. Although there is evidence that SOME judges and prosecutors in Colombia are courageous with regard to the Uribe (former Medellin Cartel) mafia, after half a decade of Uribe rule--as here, with Bush--the judges are probably a mixed bag, some of them independent and courageous, others either bought and paid for, or suffering under very serious threats.

It might be hard to find out--but it would be interesting to know if there has been a change of judges--or prosecutors. As for behind the scenes threats, we can't know. The Uribe mafia has absolutely no qualms about murdering their opponents. Judges and prosecutors (good or bad) would know this--so if threats have been issued, this could be affecting the Noguera case.

My general feeling about Uribe is that he is on the way out. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that he has failed at all of the tasks that the Bushites have given him--handing Chavez a diplomatic disaster, with dead hostages, in the FARC hostage negotiation--incredible Uribe treachery on that one, but the scheme failed; starting a war with Ecuador/Venezuela--Chavez outsmarted him, and wouldn't be drawn in (President of Brazil called Chavez "the great peacemaker'); slandering Chavez and Ecuador's president as "terrorist-lovers"--most of Latin America laughing about the "mystery laptops"; sending death squad soldiers and arms into Venezuela--they got caught, etc., etc.--and including one of Uribe's most important tasks--cleaning up Colombia's image enough to get the Colombia/U.S. "free trade" deal through Congress.

So, what do global corporate predators, war profiteers and drug cartels do when their tools in local government have outlived their usefulness? They dump them, on way or another. Not just Uribe, but the whole U.S. scheme of heavily arming Colombia as a fascist/corporate bulwark and tool against democratic countries has failed, with the OVERWHELMING leftist, democratic trend in South America. South America is well on its way to forming a South American "Common Market"--and a common defense--without the U.S. Country after country has rejected U.S.-dominated "free trade," the corrupt, murderous (and very ill-intended, indeed) U.S. "war on drugs," and U.S. interference in Latin American countries (and this includes even rightwing government objections to it--such as Calderon in Mexico publicly lecturing Bush on the sovereignty of Latin American countries and using Venezuela as an example!)

If I'm right--and Uribe is about to get dumped by the global corporate predators who want BACK IN to South America (via Obama's news "niceness" policy)--then Uribe and his pals may be feeling desperate, and have taken the risk of threatening judges and prosecutors, to get out from under these charges.

Dumping Uribe (& pals)--if that's what's in progress--is also a very tricky business for the Bush Junta, because they surely have been involved in some very dirty business in Colombia, and in the region. The deal with Chiquita, if nothing else, told us that. (Chiquita running to the Bushites, to evade charges brought against them of paying death squads to kill union leaders--and the Bush Junta letting them buy their way out with a "fine.") Tip of the iceberg, no doubt--as to Bushite/corporate business in South America. Uribe (& pals) likely know quite a lot of things that could put Bushites behind bars.

Bear in mind that the "miracle laptops" contained over 4,000 files that were created, altered or deleted by the Colombian military (buried in the Interpol report), and that Interpol also gave Uribe a secret report on the laptops. What were they "cleaning up" in Raul Reyes' (FARC hostage negotiator's) laptops? I would guess Bushite/Uribe drugs and weapons dealings--and also probably rampant torture and murder. (Interpol did NOT even review the text of the files--let alone "authenticate" them. They hired non-Spanish speaking tech analysts specifically to avoid addressing the contents in any way.)

So, maybe this is what happened: Uribe bargained with the Bushites, and one of his items was getting his death squad operator Noguero off the hook (and out of the country?). So a Bush black op team contacts the judge. This is based on the thesis that Uribe has become a liability to the corporate powers who run U.S. government policy. They want him gone (like I think they want Bush and Cheney gone), but he's got some serious bargaining chips.

I DON'T think that this release of Noguero from prison is necessarily a bad indicator--in the sense of indicating the success of Uribe tyranny (which would bode ill as to Bushite civil war schemes in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia). It could be. But I'm thinking it could end up being the harbinger of the complete failure of Bush Junta policy in South America, and the dawn of more peaceful efforts to reboot U.S. corporate influence in the region.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Uribe has attracted some very negative attention. You recall his 6 hour meeting with Chavez,

when he had to apologize for Colombia's part in an assassination plot against Chavez which had been brought to light.

Then there was the discovery of over Colombian 100 death squad troops, A.K.A. paramilitaries (some of them former Colombian soldiers), who had been lodging over 3 months at a ranch near Caracas owned by a violence-supporting anti-Chavez opposition leader, Cuban-Venezuelan Roberto Alonso. They testified they had been recruited by Venezuelan opposition to break into a Venezuelan National Guard armory, steal enough weapons to outfit 1,500 men, and go into the Presidential Palace and assassinate Hugo Chavez.

Chavez did allow almost all of these men to return home to Colombia after questioning, told the media they weren't the ones who concocted the plot, after all.

Who knows how much, ultimately has been attempted to destabilize him from Uribe's country!

We also saw how bitterly he fought against Rafael Correa in a short time span after his invasion of Ecuador. He was after him like a heat-seeking missile, determined to wreck him, but it all fell apart, making Uribe look even more preposterous. It was hard to miss where the credibility was in the room of South American leaders in the summit held directly after the invasion.

The leaders there supported Chavez and Correa, and palpably recoiled from Uribe, desperately trying to gain control over the situation and failing.

_Bush would be wise to distance from him, but when could you ever say _Bush has done anything "wise?" Uribe has become a liability, and it looks as if it could get far, FAR worse in a hurry.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Here's a correction you can be sure the Associated Press wants you to see!

Clarification: Venezuela Chavez story
2 hours ago

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — In a June 10 story, The Associated Press reported that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in January urged world leaders to back the armed struggle of leftist Colombian rebels. Chavez said at the time that world leaders should recognize the groups as "true armies... insurgent forces that have a political project." However, Chavez also said a day later: "I don't agree with the armed struggle" and urged a political solution to the conflict.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jPwmvpcxRvIN3-40Lih1x2gaFjiwD918JV000

You know the Associated Press would NEVER want you to get the wrong idea.