During a press conference at the Palace of Justice, Judge Jorge Enrique Ibáñez, vice president of the Constitutional Court, gave explanations about the serious complaint that he revealed in WEEK around the attacks that he would have suffered against his communications, of which some of the auxiliary magistrates would also have been the target from his office.
“At the beginning we were reporting some situations that could lead to technical problems with a piece of equipment, technical problems with a telephone device. After we have analyzed a series of situations that allow us to conclude that they are irregular and that they are not problems of technical or other nature, but rather that it is a different situation, this allows us to accumulate that information and, based on that, put it in the information of the (Constitutional) Court,” explained Judge Ibáñez.
The Vice President of the Constitutional Court also explained that –as a precaution– certain measures have been taken with the communications of his wife and his assistant judges. But for the moment, all these facts are in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office, a situation for which he did not provide details on how the “irregular situations” would have occurred.
Ibáñez explained: “When a telephone intervention is made, it is done in a moment and it is up in seconds. It depends on the technological medium, here they do not require sophisticated equipment. “People are interested in intervening in communications to break communication and know what one is talking about.”
Since Ibáñez denounced the irregularities that were allegedly occurring with his communication, neither the director of the Intelligence Directorate, Carlos Ramón González, nor President Gustavo Petro have communicated with the vice president of the Constitutional Court.
The judge explained that for several months he had suspected that he was being monitored and that his conversations were being listened to. For this reason, he decided to notify Judge José Fernando Reyes, the president of the Constitutional Court, who took the case to the Attorney General’s Office so that the respective investigations could begin.
Prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo herself traveled to the Palace of Justice, in the center of Bogotá, last Wednesday, June 19, to learn first-hand about the delicate situation of which Judge Ibáñez would be a victim and which would have even reached the magistrates of the Special Peace Jurisdiction (JEP).
The leader of the National Intelligence Directorate assured about the case of the shootings that “They are rumors. There is not a single specific complaint, only now Judge Ibáñez (vice president of the Constitutional Court) put some information on the table that the Prosecutor’s Office is already investigating and that will surely give results in the coming days. The rest is the call that I make to all the magistrates who feel confused, to please inform the authorities immediately so that the guilty can be investigated and punished in a drastic manner or as appropriate.
He also confirmed that the national government, the high courts and the nation’s attorney general will meet to discuss the issue of wiretapping. He also proposed creating a commission to monitor intelligence work in the country.
