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However, it allowed Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo to defend President Iván Duque’s administration with respect to the use of intelligence and counterintelligence.
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Trujillo downplayed the voices that they were going to make a motion of censure for his responsibility in these illegal wiretaps, as requested by the senator of the Green Alliance, Antonio Sanguino.
First, the Defense Minister denied that the president has a policy of targeting opponents. He expressed that the Government supports the investigation of irregular acts in the Military Forces, but pointed out that those who want to look for scapegoats are mistaken for an alleged inaction on their part to find those responsible for those actions.
“That the truth is known, you must get to the bottom of everything, on the basis that we reject all possible profiling of journalists, political leaders, leaders, but if you want the truth to be reached, you must know what was He was looking against the head of the state, “said the minister, who also pointed out that these denounced events can” qualify as a conspiracy against the head of state. ”
After recalling the known details about the attacks on the 130 personalities, the main prosecutor, Senator Juan Diego Gómez, maintained that “we ask President Iván Duque to take advantage at this time of his mandate as Commander-in-Chief of the Military Forces so that make a purge in the Military Forces, the Army and the National Police ”.
In this regard, Minister Trujillo said that the government is promoting all kinds of investigations, from the administrative ones that have already led to some officers leaving, but also to the disciplinary and judicial investigations. Everything will be fulfilled under the principle of the legitimate defense of those involved, he said.
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For his part, the senator of the Democratic Pole, Iván Cepeda, another of the citators, maintained that the number of victims would not only be 130, but could even reach 300 in recent years. In his initial intervention, the senator spoke of another illegal eavesdropping operation carried out by the counterintelligence of the Military Forces, Operation Bastón.
“Here we must be informed about Operation Cane, they must tell us where this report was made for several years and has more than 5,000 pages. It was made by an intelligence apparatus similar to the one we are debating, “said Senator Cepeda. The Ministry of Defense maintained that it remains active and that it refers to various “tasks” that have been entrusted to intelligence to follow up on internal situations that were ordered.
One more voice that questioned the minister and the government was the senator from Colombia Humana, Gustavo Bolívar, who criticized that only what had happened by the media had been known, because if it had not been so, the Government would not have informed the country about those facts. In this regard, Trujillo reported that since December 12 of last year, a month before the first report came out in Semana, he had already requested the then Army Commander, General Nicacio Martínez, to carry out an investigation for various events.
Even at the close of the debate and due to Bolívar’s insistence on asking for answers, Minister Trujillo told him “again senator asking the same thing, I already showed you the communications where it is shown that we acted before the publications in the media.”
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From uribismo, senator Ernesto Macías, questioned that throughout the debate he wanted to point out on behalf of some of the speakers to the Democratic Center as the person responsible for the blows, but he recalled that when the former president and senator Álvaro Uribe was recorded thousands of hours in calls and follow-ups to his emails from the Supreme Court that was a mistake, and that was only an excuse.
Another official senator, John Harold Súarez, said that it is necessary to know the complete list of the 130 hits that the Week Magazine report talks about. He also proposed the amendment to the Penal Code (Law 599 of 2000) to increase penalties and prosecute those who use the tools of Intelligence, Counterintelligence and use of personal data, for the purposes of corruption, filtration, extortion, and commercialization of privileged information.
“With this initiative, the modification and creation of some crimes will be sought, as well as the increase of penalties for those who participate in leaks or theft of information that is reserved, whether it is public servants or individuals,” he declared.
Although the debate has already taken place in Commission II, it was announced that the matter will be brought to the plenary session of the corporation, in a summons that has not yet been dated, but which the minister said is expected to have more information on the events that have occurred. been denounced.
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