Together with the Lawyers’ Collective, the FIDH worked directly and tirelessly on this case to secure the extradition and conviction of María del Pilar Hurtado, former director of DAS, for acts of espionage against human rights activists, journalists, politicians and judges. The FIDH will remain vigilant and is ready to be of assistance to the investigations aimed at bringing those responsible for these illegal acts to justice — acts formulated and coordinated, without any doubt whatsoever, at the very highest levels of Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s government.
Colombia: The conviction of DAS’s Jorge Noguera is a triumph of democracy and persistence
On 11 September 2017, the Criminal Cassation Division of Colombia’s Supreme Court of Justice sentenced Jorge Noguera Cotes to 94 months in prison for his part in the wire-tapping and illegal monitoring activities carried out by Colombia’s former security and intelligence agency, DAS (the Administrative Department of Security). The court noted that the facts of the case revealed Noguera to have acted, under the guise of strategic intelligence gathering, to unlawfully intercept private communications and carry out illegal surveillance.