Former Colombian intelligence official claims Colombia had a plan to kill Chavez

April 9, 2006

Rafael Garcia, the former director of the Information and Technology Department of Security Administrative Department (Spanish acronym DAS), the Colombian intelligence agency, from prison stated that there was a plan to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

The information was revealed by Garcia in an interview with Semana magazine in which he accused former DAS Director, Jorge Noguera, of providing the paramilitary death squads with information and lists about union leaders, professors, and left-wing leaders who then after were found dead. He accused Noguera of working with paramilitary chief Jorge 40 in a conspiracy to kill Chavez and other Venezuelan officials.

He denounces also that a system installed on a border post between the Colombian department of Guajira, and the Venezuelan State of Zulia for migration control was in reality an espionage system aimed at Venezuela.

Garcia said that Noguera had plotted a fraud to obtain 300,000 votes for the 2002 election campaign in favor of Alvaro Uribe.

According to Cambio and Semana magazines, Noguera was appointed consul in Milan after an scandal broke in which he was organizing a coup d’etat against Chavez in 2005.