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.
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