Teenage assassin sparks more conspiracy theories as he reveals how much he was paid to target Colombian political candidate
The 15-year-old boy under arrest for shooting Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay told investigators that he was hired by a network of assassins.
Juan Sebastían Rodríguez Casallas said that he was offered 20 million pesos, around $4,800, to assassinate the 39-year-old senator, City TV reported Wednesday.
The troubled teenager also told investigators that he was promised that the money would be transferred after taking out Uribe Turbay, the TV news show Noticias Caracol revealed Wednesday.
A video filmed by Venezuelan migrant and English teacher Héctor Montero showed Rodríguez Casallas standing several feet behind the conservative presidential hopeful while addressing a crowd of about 250 supporters at a rally on Saturday when he shot him twice in the head and once in the leg.
The Attorney General's Office charged the teenager with attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm during a hearing Tuesday.
Rodríguez Casallas, who is hospitalized and recovering from leg wounds, pleaded not guilty to both charges.
Uribe Turbay underwent emergency surgery at Santa Fé Foundation hospital, where he remains in critical condition.
Noticias Caracol also revealed Wednesday never-before-seen surveillance footage that showed Rodríguez Casallas stepping off the backseat of a motorcycle at 3:22 pm in the Bogotá neighborhood of Modelia, just blocks away from the park where Uribe Turbay would later meet with supporters.
The teen shooter removed his helmet and placed a red cap before a man, who was riding the bike, got off and removed his helmet. They had a brief conversation before Rodríguez Casallas placed a call with his cell phone.
A security camera caught a silver vehicle parking on the side of a street on Ferrocarril Avenue at 3:41 pm. The boy would be spotted five minutes later walking around a corner and approaching the car. He spoke to the driver for a while and then walked away as he carried out a conversation on his phone as the car pulled away.
A separate camera picked up the silver car stationed five blocks away from El Golfito Park, where Uribe Turbay was holding the rally, at 5:20 pm.
Two minutes elapsed when Rodríguez Casallas stepped out of the driver's seat of the vehicle. A short while later, a bearded man wearing a white shirt and black sunglasses to conceal his identity got off the rear door while a young woman wearing a black jacket and carrying a black handbag stepped off on the opposite side.
Surveillance footage later showed Rodríguez Casallas speed walking down a sidewalk as the man and the woman followed him, but kept their distance.
A woman appeared surprised at the pace at which the teenager was walking and stopped to look back as held her pet dog by the leash.
Rodríguez Casallas arrived at the park at 5:26 pm and made his way through the crowd shortly before he aimed his weapon and fired at Uribe Turbay.
The teen fled the park through a southern exit and ran down a residential block, where he was shot on one of his legs and apprehended at 5:30 pm.
'I did it for money, for my family,' Rodríguez Casallas cried to the arresting officers. 'Sorry, I did it for money, for my family.'
Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed on Monday that Uribe Turbay's security team was 'reduced' before the assassination attempt.
'For my part, I must now report that Senator Uribe's protection detail was strangely reduced on the day of the attack. From 7 to 3 people,' Petro wrote on X.
He also bizarrely claimed to be the subject of bounty plot against him.
'I know my head already has a price and is being handed over to dark, neo-Nazi, and non-republican forces, both domestic and foreign,' he wrote in the same post. 'They even went so far as to demand that the Mossad perform an extraction operation.
Authorities have not said how Rodríguez Casallas was able to acquire the 9mm Glock that he used in the assassination attempt.
National Police director, General Carlos Triana, said during a press conference Monday that the gun was legally acquired by in Mesa, Arizona on August 6, 2020.
A law enforcement source told El Tiempo newspaper that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was able to identify the buyer as Charles Joe Anderson.
AJI Sporting Goods owner Jeff Serdy told the Daily Mail on Monday that he had not been contacted by officials from Colombia or the US.
He explained that his shop brokered the gun's transfer from a dealer to his store, as buyers cannot purchase directly from a dealer and then have firearms delivered to their homes.
Serdy said his shop received a $30 processing fee for the transfer, but did not sell the gun to Anderson. He only picked it up there.
'For the record all state and federal laws were very strictly followed during this transaction,' he said, adding that a background check was conducted.
Senator Uribe Turbay is the son of a journalist Diana Turbay, who was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the country's most violent periods.
His maternal grandfather, Julio César Turbay, was president of Colombia from 1978 to 1982.
Colombia will hold a presidential election on May 31, 2026, the end of the current term of Petro, the first leftist to come to power in Colombia.
Uribe Turbay announced his presidential bid in March.
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When Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in the head on 7 June, it shocked the international community. After years of growing peace, the attack was a callback to Colombia's most violent years, when cartel-ordered assassinations were a common the identity of the alleged shooter proved even more shocking - a 15-year-old child. A video, shared widely online, shows police arresting a young man with a boyish face and hair over his shoulders, wearing blue jeans and a green has reported that after he was swiftly arrested, he cried out: "I did it for money for my family." He subsequently pleaded not guilty, the prosecutor's office said. Turbay has remained in critical condition at a clinic in Bogotá since last Saturday. Authorities are now searching for the people behind this crime, who allegedly used the boy to carry out the if it proves to be true, the boy's story is all too common. According to the Colombian Ombudsman's Office, 409 children and teenagers were recruited by armed groups in 2024, an increase from the 342 cases reported in acknowledge that the data is of armed conflict and organised crime have left thousands of children victims of violence in the years, many have been recruited by now-extinct drug organizations like the Medellin cartel led by Pablo Escobar and left-wing guerrillas, paramilitary forces and new armed and criminal groups."Minors were even used by public forces in undercover missions. Every single actor of the conflict has recruited minors," Max Yuri, director of the Institute of Political Studies at Antioquia University, told BBC Mundo. The child hitmen hired by Escobar In the 1980s, many youngsters and minors were picked up by Escobar to carry out hits."It was known as the practice of 'Los suizos'. Many youngsters and minors joined suicidal missions," Jorge Mantilla, a criminologist and security consultant and security coordinator for the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, told BBC of the most infamous was John Jairo Arias Tascón, known as 'Pinina,' considered to be one of the hitmen closest to is linked to several high-profile crimes, such as the assassination of the minister of justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984; the attack on Avianca Flight 203, in which 110 people died in 1989; as well as several murders of politicians, journalists, civilians, and criminal died aged 29 in a shoot-out with police in 1990 in Medellin. It is believed he started as a hitman as young as 22 March 1990, another 14-year-old boy named Andrés Arturo Gutiérrez Maya shot and killed presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa at Bogotá's El Dorado there was Gerardo Gutierrez, "Yerry", another young man who ended up being the main suspect in the killing of presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro Leongomez in was initially blamed for the crime, but he denied any to the Historical Memory Center in Colombia, "Yerry" was shot dead by a bodyguard. Years later, the leader of the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Carlos Castaño, admitted that he trained the hitman and planned the crime along with corrupted Colombian this day, the murder of Pizarro has not been fully solved. Minors as war weapon Recruited children usually share a common come from low-income urban areas or isolated rural territories where the Colombian state has a limited is a difference, however, between rural and urban minors in urban areas often seek to improve their economic and social status, many rural youths are forcibly recruited by armed groups, who also harass and threaten their families."It is a cheap labour force, easy to replace. Because of their malleability, they are often assigned acts of terror such as dismemberment," Mr Yuri said."It is common for them in cities to also be involved in the transportation of weapons, drugs, drug dealing, extortion collection, hitmen work, and murders," he Special Jurisdiction for Peace estimates that more than 18,000 children were recruited by Farc guerrilla between 1996 and 2016, when this left-wing group signed a peace deal with the continued clashes between Colombian forces and other guerrilla groups mean that the demand for child hitmen has not gone the recruitment methods have become more June 2024, the BBC reported how armed groups are using tools such as TikTok to reach youngsters in isolated areas in Colombia. Rising numbers A report by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo states that 1,953 minors were reported missing in 2024, more than half of whom are still unaccounted information is based on data provided by the National Institute of Legal Medicine, and one of the theories behind the disappearances is that the children may have been forcibly who live in impoverished regions are especially vulnerable. Of the 409 minors the Ombudsman's Office identified as having been recruited, about 300 were detected in Cauca, a troubled part of Colombia where coca is grown to make cocaine, that has become a frequent site of military hotspots for recruitment were Putumayo and Cauca Valley, where the conditions of violence are Mantilla said that some recent data indicated forced recruitment may have skyrocketed by 1,200% in the last few years since the pandemic. The rise is attributed to economic decline in vulnerable areas post-pandemic, and the territorial expansion of armed groups, Mr Yuri said. He also said public institutions are better at tracking these youths than they once were, leading to a rise in the overall official numbers. "Child recruitment has been possible because of the existence of unprotected, abandoned and marginalised children, and legal loopholes in the Colombian justice system," Mr Mantilla said.
