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Colombian opposition senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in Bogotá on Saturday night, in an assault that has shocked a rustic with a protracted historical past of political violence.
Uribe Turbay, 39, was leaving a marketing campaign occasion within the capital metropolis organised by his opposition Democratic Centre celebration when “armed topics shot him within the again”, in keeping with a celebration assertion.
A witness instructed native newspaper El Tiempo that Uribe was saying goodbye to attendees when a person on the again of a motorbike fired three pictures, certainly one of which hit him within the head and one other within the chest. The mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Galán, stated that the gunman had been arrested.
The conservative politician, who in October introduced his intention to run in subsequent 12 months’s presidential election, has been transferred to a clinic within the capital, in keeping with native media studies. Authorities have but to touch upon Uribe’s situation.
Movies circulating on social media following the assault present a panicked and screaming crowd, and Uribe with blood on his head and again.
The workplace of Colombian president Gustavo Petro, the nation’s first leftist chief, issued an announcement “categorically and forcefully” condemning the assault, and calling for an investigation.
“This act of violence isn’t solely an assault towards the private safety of the senator, but additionally towards democracy, freedom of thought, and the professional train of politics in Colombia,” the assertion learn.
The assault on Uribe despatched shockwaves by Colombia, a rustic that has for many years been engaged in a low-level inside battle with leftwing guerrilla armies, now-defunct rightwing paramilitaries and their successors, and organised crime teams.
Political violence was at its worst within the Nineties, with three presidential candidates murdered through the marketing campaign of 1990. In 1991, Uribe’s mom, the journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a rescue operation after she was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel. He’s the grandson of former president Julio César Turbay.
Regardless of ongoing battle throughout rural Colombia, main cities have grow to be considerably safer this century, and plenty of had believed that violence within the high tier of Colombian politics had been consigned to the previous.
Even so, some 48 hours earlier than he was shot, Uribe warned of rising violence. “They’re dragging us again to a violent previous,” he instructed a banking convention on Thursday. “With out safety there’s nothing.”
The stunning assault on Uribe additionally comes amid rising political tensions in Colombia. Petro has launched verbal assaults towards opposition politicians — together with Uribe — for blocking his reform agenda, whereas alleging that shadowy elites try to hold out a “delicate coup” towards his authorities.
Petro’s former international minister Álvaro Leyva referred to as on the president to tone down his rhetoric in an open letter in April, wherein he additionally alleged that his former boss was a drug addict.
María José Pizarro, a senator from Petro’s Historic Pact celebration whose father Carlos Pizarro was murdered in 1990 whereas on the marketing campaign path, referred to as for an “pressing assembly” of Colombia’s political events in an effort to “agree on measures to defend democracy”.
“I’m the daughter of a presidential candidate assassinated in 1990 and historical past should not repeat itself,” Pizarro posted on X.
