PANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama granted asylum to a former head of Colombia's disgraced secret police Friday, saying she has legitimate reasons to fear for her life.
Maria del Pilar Hurtado, who is in Panama and petioned for asylum Thursday, is under investigation in a scandal prompted by revelations that the DAS domestic intelligence agency she headed in 2007-2008 spied on judges, journalists and rights activists opposed to then-President Alvaro Uribe.
She was granted asylum after "a careful analysis of the request ... and the circumstances of reasonable fear for her personal security that prompted her to leave her country," the Panamanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It gave no details on Hurtado's claim that her life was in danger.
The statement said the decision was made "in the spirit of contributing to the political and social stability of the region."
Panama's ambassador in Colombia, Ricardo Anguizola, said he had not seen Hurtado's application and didn't know on what basis she had made her request.
Hurtado's lawyer said he represents her only within Colombia and wasn't able to discuss the asylum request.
Colombia's inspector general last month barred Hurtado from public service for 18 years for her role in the scandal. Uribe's chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno, was also barred for 18 years.
While the spy scandal reached Uribe's inner circle, no one has implicated the former president. The DAS, short for Department of Administrative Security, answers directly to the president but has been so discredited that President Juan Manuel Santos has said he plans to radically reform it.
Colombian Justice Minister German Vargas said on Caracol radio that he thought Hurtado's asylum bid "is a bad precedent because there is an investigation under way against her by the nation's attorney general."
Hurtado was not barred from leaving Colombia because the investigation was preliminary.
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Associated Press writer Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
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