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The National Directorate of Army Intelligence (DINE) deceived Judge Juan Poblete, minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, by requesting judicial authorization in September 2017 to spy on journalist Mauricio Weibel, according to a document published this Monday by the Journalistic Investigation Center (Ciper).
According to the article, the then Director of Intelligence, General Schafik Nazal, sent Judge Poblete a request for authorization to carry out wiretapping of an alleged foreign agent who was looking for “strategic antecedents” on the armed institution, in a operation named “W”.
The magistrate approved it, not knowing that the cell phone number written in that document was Weibel, author in 2016 of the book “Traición a la patria”, in which the embezzlement of funds in the Army with money from the Reserved Copper Law was denounced.
In August 2019, Operation W was endorsed before the Commission for the Control of the State Intelligence System of the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies by the then Director of Army Intelligence, General Guillermo Paiva, and by the former Minister of Defense, Alberto Espina placeholder image, current member of the State Defense Council (CDE), who said it was in line with the law.
At the time of the wiretaps to Weibel, the commander-in-chief of the Army was Humberto Oviedo (2014-2018), prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds from reserved expenses.
DEMAND THORN OUT OF THE CDE
After knowing the publication of Cyprus, deputy Jorge Brito, a member of the Democratic Revolution -part of the Broad Front- and a member of the Control Commission of the State Intelligence System of the Lower House, requested the departure of former minister Espina from the CDE.
“We know that the authorization was given with deception by the Army and, consequently, Minister Espina, who so many times went to the National Congress to say that the operations W and Surveyor (The latter, the wiretapping of four soldiers who denounced alleged irregularities within the armed institution), were in accordance with the law, they have to give explanations, “said the opposition legislator.
To date, more than 1,000 soldiers have gone through the courts due to the so-called “Milicogate”, one of the most serious corruption cases discovered in recent years in addition to “Pacogate”, the embezzlement by the Carabineros of almost 30,000 million pesos.
