LatinNews Daily - 24 February 2009

Development: On 23 February President Alvaro Uribe denied that the government had ordered illegal surveillance by Colombia's intelligence service, the Departamento Administrativo del Servicio (DAS).
       
Significance: Uribe is carefully distancing himself and his office, to whom the DAS directly reports, from the scandal rocking the intelligence agency. In his first statement since the scandal broke, Uribe reiterated the government's line on the case: that the recordings of supreme court judges, opposition politicians, journalists and members of Uribe's own government were carried out by a “criminal group" that has infiltrated the DAS.