BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian senator Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential contender, remains in critical condition and has shown little response to treatment after being shot in Bogota on Saturday, the hospital treating him said on Monday.
Uribe, 39, is a member of the opposition right-wing Democratic Center party and was shot in the head as he was addressing a campaign event on Saturday in a public park in the capital.
“His condition is extremely serious,” the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said in a statement. “Therefore the prognosis remains cautious.”
The shooting, which was caught on video, has shaken Colombia, evoking the political violence of previous decades.
Uribe comes from a prominent political family. His grandfather Julio Cesar Turbay was president from 1978 to 1982 and his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 during a rescue operation after being kidnapped by an armed group led by drug lord Pablo Escobar. He is not related to former president Alvaro Uribe, however.
Colombia has for decades been embroiled in conflict with leftist rebels and criminal groups descended from right-wing paramilitaries.
Leftist president Gustavo Petro has vowed to bring peace, negotiating with rebel groups to get them to put down their arms, but with little success.
Petro on Sunday said that he had ordered additional security for government officials and opposition members in response to more threats, though the details of the threats were not revealed.
It is not known why Uribe, who was vying for the candidacy of his party, was attacked. He was polling well behind other party candidates at the time of the shooting.
A young teen found to be carrying a 9-mm pistol was arrested after the shooting. The gun was purchased in Arizona, the head of police said, and authorities are investigating how it reached Colombia.
Authorities had yet to interrogate the boy as he was receiving medical care, Attorney General Luz Adriana Camacho said on Monday. However, she said that if the teen were a gun-for-hire, he would likely have little information about the hirer’s motive.
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb and Kylie Madry; Editing by Aidan Lewis, Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Kevin Liffey)
