Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past.
The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman.
Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage.
Photo: AFP
“To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that can be committed,” his widow, Maria Claudia Tarazona, said at his wake on Monday, where she thanked her husband’s medical team for their efforts.
She attended the state ceremony at the National Capitol in Bogota, where Uribe’s body would remain for public viewing until today.
Authorities have arrested six suspects linked to the attack, including the alleged shooter, who was captured at the scene by Uribe’s bodyguards.
Following a nationwide search, police announced the arrest of an alleged mastermind behind the attack, Elder Jose Arteaga Hernandez, alias “El Costeno.”
Police have also pointed to a dissident wing of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group as being behind the assassination.
The attack on Uribe, a leading candidate ahead of next year’s presidential election, has reopened old wounds in a country racked by violence.
His mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a botched 1991 police operation to free her from cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel.
Four presidential candidates were assassinated during the worst phase of violence in the 1980s and 1990s under Escobar, who terrorized citizens of Bogota, Medellin and elsewhere with a campaign of bombings.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, of whom Uribe was a fierce critic, wrote on social media that the government’s role was to “repudiate crime ... regardless of ideology” and assured the safety of Colombians was his top priority.
“Violence cannot continue to mark our destiny,” Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez wrote on social media. “Democracy is not built with bullets or blood, it is built with respect, with dialogue.”
Uribe had fiercely criticized Petro’s strategy of “total peace,” based on engaging all of Colombia’s remaining armed groups, including drug traffickers, in dialogue.
He announced in October he would seek to succeed the term-limited Petro in the election in May next year.
“Evil destroys everything, they killed hope. May Miguel’s struggle be a light that illuminates Colombia’s rightful path,” former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe wrote on X.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS