Colombian presidential candidate's condition 'grave' after assassination attempt
By
Alba Santana
, AFP
Miguel Uribe.
Photo:
AFP/SEBASTIAN BARROS
A prominent Colombian presidential candidate was in "grave" condition and "fighting for his life" in hospital Sunday, after an alleged teen gunman shot him twice in the head at a Bogota campaign rally.
Thirty-nine-year-old right-wing Senator Miguel Uribe underwent successful initial surgery to contain injuries from Saturday's attack, but doctors warned his life was still in serious peril.
He remains in "the most grave condition and the prognosis is reserved" said medics at the capital's Santa Fe Clinic.
Uribe's shooting has utterly shocked a nation that had believed decades of bloody political and narco violence were largely in the past.
Hundreds took to the streets in major cities on Sunday to light candles, pray and voice their anger at the attack.
"Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts," Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, told AFP as she lit candles and prayed outside the hospital where Uribe was being treated.
The crowd joined together in cries of "strength to you Miguel" and "the people are with you."
Uribe's wife Maria Claudia Tarazona thanked Colombians for their support and asked that they collectively pray for his survival.
"He is fighting hard for his life," she said. The senator received two gunshot wounds to the head and was also shot once in the leg.
Although a security guard at the scene captured the alleged gunman, the motive for the shooting is still not publicly known.
Uribe had been a fierce critic of Colombia's leftist government, of guerrilla groups that still control chunks of the country and of ultra-powerful drug cartels.
The government has vowed to use every police, military and intelligence resource to uncover the motive and find those who hired the alleged would-be assassin.
Police said there had been no specific threats against Uribe's life, but like other public figures he had close personal protection.
The young Senator's family history traces the tragedies of modern Colombia, making the attack all the more poignant for many.
He is the grandson of a former president Julio Cesar Turbay whose 1978-1982 term was marked by guerrilla insurgencies and the emergence of the Medellin and Cali drug cartels.
Pablo Escobar.
Photo:
supplied
But Uribe is best known as the son of Diana Turbay, a famed Colombian journalist who was killed after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar and whose death rocked the nation.
A team of about 100 investigators are now working to determine the motive for the attack, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said Sunday.
Earlier he had offered a roughly US$725,000 (NZ$1.2m) reward for information about who was behind the shooting.
The suspect, believed to be about 15 years old, was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment, said police director Carlos Fernando Triana.
Two others - a man and a woman - were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized.
The attack has been condemned by politicians across the political spectrum.
Leftist President Gustavo Petro condemned the violence as "an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia".
The shooting was similarly condemned from overseas, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it "a direct threat to democracy".
But Rubio also pointed blame at Petro, claiming the attack was the "result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government".
"President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials," the top US diplomat said.
- AFP
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


NZ Herald
9 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg reaches Israeli port
A Gaza-bound aid boat reached Israel's Ashdod port on Monday after being intercepted by Israeli forces, preventing the dozen activists on board, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory. An AFP photographer said that the Madleen, which organisers said was intercepted in international waters overnight, reached

RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Frederick Forsyth, adventurer and bestselling spy novelist, dies aged 86
By Emilie Bickerton , AFP Frederick Forsyth, pictured in 1997. Photo: ULF ANDERSEN / AFP A pilot who turned to writing to clear his debts, British author Frederick Forsyth, who died on Monday aged 86, penned some 20 spy novels, often drawing on real-life experiences and selling 70 million copies worldwide. In such bestsellers as The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File , Forsyth honed a distinctive style of deeply researched and precise espionage thrillers involving power games between mercenaries, spies and scoundrels. For inspiration he drew on his own globe-trotting life, including an early stint as a foreign correspondent and assisting Britain's spy service on missions in Nigeria, South Africa, and the former East Germany and Rhodesia. "The research was the big parallel: as a foreign correspondent you are probing, asking questions, trying to find out what's going on, and probably being lied to," he told The Bookseller magazine in 2015. "Working on a novel is much the same... essentially it's a very extended report about something that never happened - but might have." He wrote his first novel when he was 31, on a break from reporting and in dire need of money to fund his wanderlust. Having returned "from an African war, and stony broke as usual, with no job and no chance of one, I hit on the idea of writing a novel to clear my debts", he said in his autobiography The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue , published in 2015. "There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank." But Forsyth's foray came good. Taking just 35 days to pen The Day of the Jackal , his story of a fictional assassination attempt on French president Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists, met immediate success when it appeared in 1971. The novel was later turned into a film and provided self-styled revolutionary Carlos the Jackal with his nickname. Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His eighteenth novel, The Fox , was published in 2018. Forsyth's now classic post-Cold War thrillers drew on drone warfare, rendition and terrorism - and eventually prompted his wife to call for an end to his dangerous research trips. "You're far too old, these places are bloody dangerous and you don't run as avidly, as nimbly as you used to," Sandy Molloy said after his last trip to Somalia in 2013 researching The Kill List , as Forsyth recounted to AFP in 2016. There were also revelations in his autobiography about his links with British intelligence. Forsyth recounted that he was approached in 1968 by "Ronnie" from MI6 who wanted "an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave" in Nigeria, where there was a civil war between 1967 and 1970. While he was there, Forsyth reported on the situation and at the same time kept "Ronnie informed of things that could not, for various reasons, emerge in the media". Then in 1973 Forsyth was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany. He drove his Triumph convertible to Dresden to receive a package from a Russian colonel in the toilets of the Albertinum museum. The writer claimed he was never paid by MI6 but in return received help with book research, submitting draft pages to ensure he was not divulging sensitive information. In later years Forsyth turned his attention to British politics, penning a regular column in the anti-EU Daily Express newspaper. He also wrote articles on counter-terrorism issues, military affairs and foreign policy. Despite his successful writing career, he admitted in his memoirs it was not his first choice. "As a boy, I was obsessed by aeroplanes and just wanted to be a pilot," he wrote of growing up an only child in Ashford, southern England, where he was born on 25 August, 1938. He trained as a Royal Air Force pilot, before joining Reuters news agency in 1961 and later working for the BBC. But after he wrote Jackal , another career path opened up. "My publisher told me, to my complete surprise, that it seemed I could tell a good story. And that is what I have done for the past forty-five years," he recalled in his autobiography. - AFP


NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
IDF board Greta Thunberg's aid ship and the end of 3G approaches
Israeli forces board a Gaza-bound aid vessel and capture activist Greta Thunberg, plus Telcos prepare for 3G network's demise. Video / NZ Herald, AFP