Colombian prison authorities waited more than 48 hours before securing laptop computers and cell phones belonging to 14 right-wing paramilitary leaders who were suddenly extradited to the US on May 13. Eventually the prison authorities turned 10 laptops over to prosecutors, along with seven cell phones, one Blackberry wireless messaging device, six or more USB memory sticks, and 72 CDs belonging to Diego Fernando Murillo ("Don Berna"); the CDs were said to be "labeled with [mass] graves by region." Paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso's laptop was sent to a repair shop on May 10, two days before the extradition, and hadn't been recovered as of May 27. SIM memory cards from cell phones belonging to Mancuso, Ramiro Vanoy and Juan Carlos Sierra were also missing.

Prisons director Eduardo Morales said he never got an order from superiors to preserve evidence in the prison cells after the inmates' surprise removal. Journalists have speculated that someone could have removed data incriminating politicians and business people during the time before the equipment was secured; 33 members of Congress have gone to jail in connection with their association with paramilitary leaders. Independent analyst Claudia Lopez said it was "outrageous" that "the computers of the paramilitaries can't survive an inspection by [prison authorities] in a maximum-security prison" when computers belonging to Raul Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were supposedly found intact after the Colombian military bombed a FARC camp in Ecuador on Mar. 1, "in a foreign country in the middle of the night." (International Herald Tribune, May 28 from AP)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 1

See our last posts on Colombia and the parapolítica scandal.