Argentina’s Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) has called for an investigation into former Argentine president Mauricio Macri for allegedly spying on more than 400 journalists, a source said on Sunday.
Dozens of foreign journalists, including several representing Agence France-Presse, appeared on a list of people to be investigated in relation to the G20 and WTO summits held in Buenos Aires in the past few years.
“The complaint was lodged on Friday and tomorrow [Monday] all the evidence will be presented,” the official source said on condition of anonymity.
Photo: AFP
About 100 academics, businesspeople and prominent figures from civil society also appeared on the list.
The documents relating to the case were found in three dossiers labeled “2017,” “G20 Journalists” and “Miscellaneous,” in a safe in the office of the AFI’s former director of counterintelligence.
Buenos Aires hosted the 11th WTO ministerial conference in 2017 and the 13th G20 summit a year later.
“The investigation into the journalists was straightforward. They dug up information from social media and that way built an ideological and political profile,” the source said.
The complaint was lodged by Cristina Caamano, who has been tasked by Argentine President Alberto Fernandez to carry out an audit of AFI as part of a reorganization process.
According to the complaint, the profile information included “political preferences, social media posts, sympathy for feminist groups, or political and/or cultural content among others.”
The comments included whether or not “they were critical of the current government” of Macri, who held office from 2015 until last year, or showed “affinity for Peronism” or if they “signed a petition for legalized abortion.”
Each profile was marked in either green, yellow or red, supposedly an indication aimed at assisting the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the accreditation processes for the events.
Caamano has asked for an investigation to be opened against former AFI director Gustavo Arribas and his deputy Silvina Majdalani, as well as Macri as the person “responsible for setting strategic guidelines and the objectives of national intelligence policy.”
The complaint states that the background checks on journalists were “neither ordered nor authorized by any magistrate.”
The foreign correspondents association hit out at Macri for the “inadmissible” investigations, while two Argentine press unions also blasted the former administration.
Macri is already under investigation for spying during his presidency on allies and opponents.
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