Interpol says Colombia FARC laptop files authentic

By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian guerrilla computer documents that Bogota says are proof Venezuela and Ecuador supported the Marxist rebels are authentic and show no evidence of tampering, Interpol said on Thursday.

The international police agency's conclusion reinforces Colombian and U.S. officials' charges that the files show Venezuela backed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

But Interpol said it did not verify the files' contents, leaving open to debate whether they tie Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Latin America's oldest insurgency.

"Interpol concludes there was no tampering with any data," Interpol chief Richard Noble said through an interpreter in a Bogota. "We are absolutely certain that the computer discs our experts examined came from a FARC terrorist camp."

Chavez and Ecuadorean leader Rafael Correa, whose government has also been implicated in the scandal, say the charges are false and part of a U.S.-backed campaign to discredit their left-leaning governments.

Colombia, which along with the United States labels the FARC terrorists, seized the laptops in a March raid on a rebel camp inside Ecuador that killed a guerrilla leader.

Accusations based on the files from three laptops, hard drives and computer data keys are fueling tensions in the Andean region, where Colombia is Washington's closest ally and Venezuela and Ecuador are fierce U.S. critics.

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Ties have been strained since the March raid in which Colombian forces killed rebel commander Raul Reyes, sparking a diplomatic crisis and fears of a regional war.

Colombia asked Interpol to carry out tests to guarantee it had not manipulated the rebel material.

Dozens of Interpol agents scoured what Noble said were the equivalent of 40 million Microsoft Word pages, including videos, photographs, data spreadsheets and nearly 1,000 encrypted files.

Colombian police claim the archives showed Chavez offered financial aid to the rebels and Correa allowed them to hide out in Ecuador. U.S. officials say documents reveal the rebels' deep ties to Venezuela's government.

"There are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Handing Interpol the evidence was meant to add credibility to the charges, said Phillip McLean, an ex-U.S. diplomat with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"But the computers give only one side of a conversation, i.e.: the FARC's. Intel analysts will find it fascinating, but it would be hard to call what comes out 'proof,'" he said.