Laptop computers have proven evidentiary treasure troves of late for Colombian investigators probing far-right militias and leftist rebels.
So it amazed many to learn that authorities didn’t immediately secure laptops and cellphones belonging to most of the 14 paramilitary warlords they yanked out of prison on May 12 and extradited to the US to stand trial for drug trafficking.
The hard drive in warlord Ramiro Vanoy’s laptop and three cellphone SIM cards went missing from Itagui prison outside Medellin, where half of the extradited warlords were held.
And prosecutors are not yet able to say whether any of 10 seized computers were tampered with during the more than 48 hours that lapsed before prison officials handed them over to judicial investigators. They must first await clearance from a special tribunal.
The apparent neglect — or worse — was especially striking given officials’ recent handling of evidence found on other laptops.
Computer files found in a rebel camp in March implicated Venezuela as a guerrilla ally and have prompted criminal investigations. And a paramilitary boss’s laptop seized two years ago has helped win convictions against political allies of outlawed far-right militias.
The failure to secure the extradited paramilitaries’ laptops is “outrageous,” said independent political analyst Claudia Lopez, who helped uncover a scandal linking warlords with politicians that has so far landed 33 members of Congress in prison.
“It’s sabotage of important evidence, though you don’t know whether it’s ineptitude or done deliberately,” Lopez said in a telephone interview.
After an uproar in Colombian media about the mishandled equipment, Vanoy’s lawyer turned over on Friday what he said was the errant hard drive, “its seals of guarantee perfectly intact,” the national prisons authority said.
The judicial police officers who removed the warlords from prisons in Medellin, Barranquilla and Bogota had no court orders to seize property, their boss Colonel Cesar Pinzon said. He said the officers weren’t allowed to enter the inmates’ cells.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home