Death Threats for Supreme Court Justices in Colombia http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51251

The Supreme Court's opposition to the far-right paramilitary groups' growing control over Colombian society from within the state itself has put it in "real and imminent danger," in the words of former foreign minister Augusto Ramírez Ocampo.The president of the Supreme Court, Jaime Arrubla, says the surveillance to which the magistrates were subjected at the hands of Colombia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS) -- which advises, and only receives instructions from, the president’s office -- was "a state conspiracy" against the Court.

But the real confrontation between the Supreme Court and the right-wing government of Álvaro Uribe began when the Court started to investigate the ties between lawmakers and other politicians -- nearly all of them allies of the president -- and the paramilitary groups. The Supreme Court has played a key role in uncovering the so-called "parapolitics" scandal, in which one-third of the members of Congress have either been arrested or investigated since 2006 for ties to the paramilitary militias led by drug lords and accused of crimes against humanity.