Colombia investigates alleged wiretapping of top court

Colombia's attorney general has ordered a team of prosecutors to investigate whether judges at the Constitutional Court were being wiretapped.

The Attorney General's Office made this announcement following an emergency meeting between Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo and the Bogota Superior Court.

The meeting was called after media reported that an unidentified magistrate had sent a message to his contacts, claiming that “this phone and this conversation were illegally intercepted by state intelligence organs,” according to Caracol Radio.

In a press release, the prosecutor's office said on Saturday that Camargo “ordered to immediately open a corresponding investigation.”

A team of prosecutors will “move forward with speed and rigor” to “establish the scope and impact” of the alleged wiretapping.

The director of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI), Carlos Ramon Gonzalez, told Congress earlier in the week that his agency had not issued any orders to wiretap judges.

The DNI is one of several state agencies with the ability to conduct wiretapping if warranted.

The scandal caused by the magistrate's accusations of telephone tapping is the latest in a long series.

The DNI's predecessor, the DAS intelligence agency, was dismantled in 2011 after it was caught spying on the Supreme Court, members of Congress and people considered politically embarrassing to former President Alvaro Uribe.

The prosecution was embarrassed in 2018 after evidence emerged that its wiretapping capabilities were being used for corporate espionage.

Local media reported in 2020 that the former army chief lost his job because he allegedly ordered his intelligence agents to illegally wiretap journalists, Supreme Court justices and politicians.