A/HRC/13/72 Annex Illustrative cases of violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law As a complement to the High Commissioner’s report on the situation of human rights in Colombia, and by way of illustration, a number of cases of human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law that have come to the attention of the office in Colombia of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (“OHCHR-Colombia”) during the reporting period are described below. Situation of the judiciary The following cases illustrate the tension and public disputes between the executive and judicial branches during 2009, as well as the security difficulties sustained by certain magistrates of High Courts: (a) In a press release issued on 25 November, the Government stated that the President of the Supreme Court had “not told the truth” when he denied that he had informed the President of the Republic that the difficulties identified by the Court to elect the Attorney General had been overcome after the withdrawal of one of the three candidates; (b) A Supreme Court magistrate, former President of the Court, was subject to illegal surveillance attributed to the Department of National Security (DAS). In May 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in favour of the magistrate. Intelligence services Information was made public in 2009 that DAS (the national civil intelligence agency reporting directly to the President) had conducted widespread and systematic illegal intelligence operations going back at least as far as 2003. These operations targeted, inter alia, human rights defenders, political opposition leaders, journalists and State officials. The cases below illustrate how the operations affected the human rights situation: (a) On 11 and 13 February, in Santa Fe de Antioquia and Marinilla (Antioquia), several people in plain clothes, without requesting authorization, videotaped prosecutors of the Human Rights National Unit while they were performing official activities relating to cases of extrajudicial executions attributed to the army. When these people were asked who they were by the prosecutors, they identified themselves as members of military intelligence units; (b) On 27 May, in a rural area of Yopal (Casanare), while prosecutors were performing official activities relating to an alleged extrajudicial execution in which members of the Army Unified Action Groups for Personal Freedom (Spanish acronym, GAULA) were involved, a vehicle with polarized windows, parked in front of the GAULA premises and driven by armed men in plain clothes, was seen on a number of occasions following those prosecutors and staff members of OHCHR-Colombia who were supporting them; 22 GE.10-11819