Miguel Uribe's security was cut on day of assassination bid, says Colombia president gustavo petro
The number of security staff for Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe, seriously wounded in an assassination attempt on the weekend, was drastically cut on the day of the attack, President Gustavo Petro said Monday.
"I must now report that the protection scheme for Senator Uribe was reduced, strangely, on the day of the attack, from 7 to 3 people," Petro said on X, adding he had requested the decision -- which is the responsibility of a state body -- to be investigated in full.
Uribe, 39, was shot twice in the head at close range by a 15-year-old alleged hitman while campaigning in Bogota on Saturday, and is fighting for his life in hospital.
The politician's lawyer Victor Mosquera said Monday he had filed a criminal complaint against the UNP protection unit in charge of security for high-profile and at-risk personalities.
The lawyer said he had made more than 20 requests this year alone to have his client's security bolstered, and said the investigation by the prosecutor's office should determine "if the state, through omission, left Uribe defenseless."
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez has said authorities were investigating several possible motives for the attack.
It may have been a message, he said, to Uribe's conservative party ahead of presidential elections in 2026, or an effort to destabilize the country's first-ever leftist government under Petro.
The president said Monday that investigators were still 'operating in the realm of hypotheses.'
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