International police organization Interpol on Thursday backed the Colombian government by saying that it did not alter the computers seized from a camp of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) during a raid last March.
 
Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble said that the international experts who analyzed the equipments "found no evidence" of undue intervention.
 
"The Interpol team of forensic experts found no evidence of modification, alteration, addition or deletion from the files," said Noble during a press conference in Bogotá.

Noble submitted the report at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs seated in Bogotá to police chief officer, General Oscar Naranjo, and María del Pilar Hurtado, the head of the Colombian intelligence services, AFP quoted.

The Colombian government had requested Interpol to appoint an expert team in order to examine the computers that were found last March 1st, in a raid on a FARC camp located in northern Ecuador. FARC second-in-command Raúl Reyes died during the operation.

Based on the files excerpts provided by Naranjo and other members of the Colombian government, the FARC were funded by the Venezuelan government and presumably gave money to back the election campaign of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.

Both the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian governments labeled the claims as lie. In the meantime, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez hinted that they were part of a US plot to destabilize his country.

The experts of Australia, Singapore and Korea who authored the report were appointed by Interpol to ascertain whether the files found in the computers hard disks had been manipulated or altered after March 1st. The experts did not attest to the accuracy of the contents.

"We are aware that we could be the target of attacks because of this query," said Noble. Therefore, "steps were taken to safeguard its independence," he added.

Noble noted that only the written documents included in the computers comprised more than 39 million pages and would take 100 years to read them. He added that after March 1st, about 48,000 accesses to the documents contained in the hard disks were recorded.

"For the first time in its history, Colombia allows Interpol to examine its classified information," Noble told reporters.

Translated by Conchita Delgado