Colombian Ex-Paramilitary Boss Spills Details of Govt Plot

A Colombian former paramilitary chief has testified that his organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), worked with the government and the country’s intelligence agency, the DAS, to carry out a plot to spy on and discredit the Supreme Court during the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe. He also said that the AUC helped spy on journalists and opposition figures.

Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna,” gave his statements to Colombian courts via videolink from the US prison where he is serving a sentence for drug trafficking. This is the first testimony he has given since suspending his cooperation with Colombian justice in 2010.

Key members of the Uribe administration have already been jailed as they await trial for colluding with the DAS to carry out illegal wiretapping of perceived opponents, though no mud has so far been made to legally stick to the former president himself. The victims included members of the Supreme Court, as well as journalists and opposition groups. But Don Berna’s testimony breaks new ground in providing testimony of the AUC’s involvement. As La Silla Vacia puts it;

Don Berna is the first of the heads of the paramilitaries to admit in court that there was a “partnership” between the paras and the government of Alvaro Uribe, in this case to discredit the Supreme Court.

The plot against the court was pushed forward, according to the ex-commander, with a meeting between Don Berna’s representatives and close presidential aides at the presidential palace in Bogota in 2008 to hand over information on the court to the government. As Colombia Reports explains, the court was at the time investigating the ties between the paramilitaries and allies of Uribe, in what was known as the “parapolitics” scandal. Don Berna said that "The idea was to find a way to discredit the court so that it would lose credibility in its investigations." He claims that he was transferred to La Picota prison in Bogota in the late 2000s not as a punishment, as the government claimed at the time, but to make it easier to work with the government in their plot against the Supreme Court.

Journalist Daniel Coronell, himself a victim of wiretapping, reported on the accusations, saying that, if Don Berna’s testimony is corroborated, "it becomes clear that the so-called meeting of the 'Casa de Nari' [presidential palace] (April 2008) was another link in a criminal operation that included wiretapping, surveillance and financial tracking against judges and journalists."

Don Berna said that the AUC had been closely allied with the DAS, which had offered logistical support and protection to his men;

When [now jailed ex-DAS director] Jorge Noguera was appointed, [AUC] commander "Jorge 40" told the majority of commanders that someone who had his full confidence had reached the top and that we could count on him for whatever we needed.

The ex-commander said that the DAS had given him equipment to carry out secret recordings of opposition figures, which were then handed over to the government. Former president of the court, Jaime Arrubla, said that Don Berna’s testimony proved what he and his magistrates had been claiming for years, and that people had called them paranoid.

The DAS’s dissolution has been on the table since the wiretapping scandal broke in February 2009, and is now being carried out.

Don Berna’s testimony implicates the Uribe administration still more closely in murky dealings with the AUC, and could be a precursor to Uribe himself facing legal consequences. As Colombia Reports puts it, “The former president has always defended his subordinates and has accused Colombia's Prosecutor General's Office and Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras of politically persecuting members of his administration.” The united front of his inner circle could, however, be starting to crack.


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