Colombian politician dies two months after being shot
Government employees attend a ceremony for late Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, in Bogota. Photo: Reuters
Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday.
The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former 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 recent weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had suffered a new brain hemorrhage.
"Rest in peace, love of my life," his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona wrote on Monday morning in a post on Instagram.
"Thank you for a life full of love."
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 manhunt, 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 FARC guerrilla group as being behind the assassination.
Writing on X, left-wing President Gustavo Petro, of whom Uribe was a fierce critic, said the government's role was to "repudiate crime...regardless of ideology" and assured the safety of Colombians was his top priority.
"Today is a sad day for the country," Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez said on social media.
"Violence cannot continue to mark our destiny. 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 Colombia's remaining armed groups, including drug traffickers, in dialogue.
He announced in October that he would seek to succeed the term-limited Petro in the May 2026 presidential election.
Uribe was elected to Bogota's city council at age 26, later becoming its youngest-ever chairperson and then the mayor's right-hand man.
In 2019, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Bogota, but three years later, he was elected a senator – receiving the most votes of any candidate in the country.
In recent months, Petro, a former left-wing guerrilla, has been accused of dialing up the political temperature by labelling his right-wing opponents "Nazis."
Uribe leaves behind a young son and three teenage daughters of his wife, whom he had taken in as his own. (Reuters)
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