Former DAS director indicted again for political assasination

[Judi Lynn]

Former DAS director indicted again for political assasination
Wednesday, 01 June 2011 16:53
Toni Peters

A former director of Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS is being taken to trial for the second time for his alleged role in a political assassination, local media reported Wednesday.

A Supreme Court prosecutor handed down a second indictment to retired general and former DAS Director Miguel Alfredo Maza Marquez for his alleged role in the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan Sarmiento in 1989.

~snip~
The events being investigated occurred August 18, 1989 in the central square of Soacha, a town near the Colombian capital, where Galan Sarmiento was assassinated along with his body guard Santiago Cuervo Jimenez and a Soacha councilor Julio Cesar Peñalosa Sanchez. At the time Galan was the most threatened man in Colombia and the favorite to win the presidential election.

DAS was the body in charge of protecting the political leader. Former members of paramilitary groups from the Magdalena Medio region, who were ordered by the cartel to commit the assassination, have accused Maza Marquez of facilitating the crime and hampering the investigation.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16690-dnp-former-das-director-indicted-again-for-political-assasination.html

http://www.accionsolidaria.org.nyud.net:8090/GalanVive.jpg

[gbscar]

1. Shouldn't surprise many people today, but despite the fact DAS involvement was known even then...

...and considered suspicious by most observers, it wasn't exactly clear that Maza Marquez himself could have been a part of it. Which probably sounds naive, in light of both what recent events have shown and the type of agency DAS is to begin with (intelligence services in general aren't known, as rule, for being above and beyond criminal -let alone murderous- activities, not just in Colombia but elsewhere in the region).