BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A Colombian senator and presidential hopeful whose shooting at a political rally recalled some of the darkest chapters of the country’s drug-fueled violence has died.
The family of Miguel Uribe Turbay said the 39-year-old politician died Monday at a hospital in the capital, Bogota, more than two months after he was critically wounded.
“Rest in peace, love of my life. I will take care of our children,” his wife, María Claudia Tarazona, wrote in a social media post confirming his death. “I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you.”
A teenage suspect was arrested at the scene of the attack in a working class Bogota neighborhood and authorities have since detained several others. But it’s still unclear who ordered the assassination or why. Uribe underwent emergency surgery and remained hospitalized in intensive care until his death.
The attack, which was caught on multiple videos, alarmed Colombians who haven’t seen this kind of political violence against presidential candidates since Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar declared war on the state in the 1990s.
Uribe’s own mother, a well known journalist, Diana Turbay, was among the victims of that period when she died during a police rescue after being kidnapped by a group of drug traffickers led by Escobar seeking to block their extradition to the United States.
“If my mother was willing to give her life for a cause, how could I not do the same in life and in politics?” Uribe, who was just 5 when his mother was killed, said in an interview last year with a Colombian news outlet.
Uribe, a lawyer with a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University, entered politics as a councilman for Bogota when he was 26. In 2022, he was the biggest vote-getter in the conservative Democratic Center party led by former President Alvaro Uribe.
“Evil destroys everything,” the elder Uribe, who is not related to the senator, said on social media. “They have killed hope. May Miguel’s struggle be a light that illuminates Colombia’s path.”
Authorities have floated several hypotheses about what led to the attack while allies of the candidate have complained that the government ignored repeated requests to reinforce his state-provided security detail.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, tens of thousands poured into the streets dressed in white and waving the Colombian flag to reject the violence.
