News you may have missed #0077
August 23, 2009 Leave a comment
- US Army documents reveal Mexican military’s role in massacre. Newly declassified documents from the US Defense Intelligence Agency describe the Mexican Army’s role in backing paramilitary groups in Chiapas at the time of the Acteal massacre. The massacre involved the killing of 45 people attending a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic indigenous townspeople, including a number of children and pregnant women, who were members of the pacifist group Las Abejas (“The Bees”).
- Tamils in the UK continue fundraising despite spy fears. Members of the Tamil community in Oxford, England, have vowed to continue fundraising despite fears that the Sri Lankan government is spying on them.
- Major purge at Bulgarian intelligence agency. More key officials of Bulgaria’s State National Security Agency (DANS) have submitted their resignations after its director, Petko Sertov, was recently replaced. Sertov was allegedly axed because Bulgaria’s “American partners were said to have lost faith” in him.
Former Colombian spy director surrenders in assassination probe
August 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment
Maza Marquez
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Miguel Maza Marquez, a fugitive from justice who briefly directed Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) in the late 1980s, has turned himself in at a DAS academy. His arrest was ordered in June by the office of the Colombian Attorney General, in connection with the 1989 assassination of reformist Colombian politician Luis Carlos Galán. Galán, who was the leading presidential candidate at the time of his assassination, gained his popularity by declaring himself an enemy of Colombia’s drug cartels, such as those led by Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodríguez. On August 18, 1989, Galán was shot in the face during a pre-election rally in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota. Prosecutors investigating his assassination allege that Maza Marquez, whose Department was responsible for Galán’s bodyguards, intervened to make suspicious changes to Galán’s security detail on the night of his assassination. Some say that Maza Marquez was acting on orders from notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar himself.
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with assassinations, Bogota (Colombia), Colombia, Colombian Liberal Party, corruption, DAS (Colombia), Gonzalo Rodríguez, Luis Carlos Galán, Miguel Maza Marquez, narcotics trade, News, Pablo Escobar