Colombia's state intelligence agency is to be dismantled following a series of scandals involving it agents, the Bogota government has said.
More than 40 agents have been accused of illegally tapping the telephones of judges, journalists, human rights workers and opposition politicians.
"The DAS will be dissolved in order to make way for a new civilian intelligence agency," Felipe Munoz, the intelligence agency chief, said in a statement posted on Colombia's presidential website on Friday.
"A definitive change is needed."
A bill will be presented to congress next week proposing the end of the DAS and outlining the structure of the new intelligence agency, according to the statement. Munoz said that the majority of the current agency's 6,000 employees would be transferred to the criminal investigative unit of the police and other investigative bodies. More on Al Jazeera