FARC laptop information genuine? BULLSHIT!

The Colombian story about the veracity of information on those FARC laptops is unravelling. Here's the link to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by Daniel Denvir of NACLA, which explains the following:

This was the site of the FARC camp after being hit by Colombian bombs

And this, according to the Colombian police, is the computer
hardware recovered from the site. Click to enlarge and
find the scratches/bends/dents etc. There aren't any.

1. On March 3rd (remember that date), "El Tiempo", the biggest circulation newspaper in Colombia, received photos from a Colombian government official. El Tiempo displayed the photos as part of a gallery taken from the FARC computers.

2. The newspaper then quietly took the photos down from its gallery of snaps about a week later.

3. It now appears that the photos were taken by Colombian gov't officials in Quito, Ecuador, as part of a surveillance operation on a left wing group's meeting.

If all this is true (very likely by the looks of things, especially taking into account how El Tiempo has been caught in an obvious lie or three), what we have is a clear indication that the Colombian government has planted its own information in the public sphere and called it FARC material. That lapse in the chain of custody from March 1st to March 3rd, when Colombia accessed the FARC computers forty eight thousand times before handing them over to an accountable authority is becoming very significant. To cite the famous Interpol report:

Finding 2b: Access to the data contained in the eight FARC computer exhibits
between 1 March 2008, when they were seized by Colombian authorities, and 3 March
2008 at 11:45 a.m., when they were turned over to the Grupo Investigativo de Delitos
Informáticos of the Colombian Judicial Police, did not conform to internationally
recognized principles for handling electronic evidence by law enforcement.

Of course, that same Interpol report is being used almost non-stop to say that the FARC files are genuine and that Chavez and company are very very naughty boys. What it in fact said was....

Finding 3: INTERPOL found no evidence that user files were created, modified or
deleted on any of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits following their seizure on
1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities.

....and nothing else. Now is it just me, or would the following finding also be true?

Finding 3: INTERPOL found no evidence that user files were not created, modified or
deleted on any of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits following their seizure on
1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities.

Words, eh?*

A large hat tip for the headsup on Daniel Denvir's report goes to borev.net, and it's worth going over to borev to get a large dose of his snark on the subject (borev does it so much better than me). That dude makes me laugh.

PS: What were Colombian nationals doing taking photos on an undercover job in Ecuador, anyway?

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*HAMLET: Act 2, scene 2 (line numbers removed)

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET Words, words, words.

POLONIUS What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET Between who?

POLONIUS I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

POLONIUS [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET Into my grave.

POLONIUS [Aside.] Indeed, that is out o' the air. How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
meeting between him and my daughter.—My honorable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET These tedious old fools!