Fears grow for gravely wounded Colombian presidential candidate
Right-wing Senator Miguel Uribe, 39, was shot by a 15-year-old alleged hitman at close range while campaigning in Bogota on Saturday.
Maria Claudia Tarazona (C), wife of Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, speaks to the media outside the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where her husband is hospitalized after being shot in Bogota on June 8, 2025. (AFP)
By AFP .
Journalists @New Vision
________________
Doctors treating a Colombian presidential hopeful shot twice in the head by a would-be assassin warned he was not responding well to treatment Monday and that his condition remained grave.
Right-wing Senator Miguel Uribe, 39, was shot by a 15-year-old alleged hitman at close range while campaigning in Bogota on Saturday.
The brazen attack has shocked Colombians, most of whom believed decades of bloody political and narco-violence were largely in the past.
As police investigators searched for a motive and suspects, Uribe was battling for his life in a Bogota hospital.
Medics at the Santa Fe Clinic said Monday that he remained in "the most grave condition" and was "scarcely responding to the interventions and medical treatments."
People light candles during a protest against violence and in favor of peace in Medellin, Colombia, on June 8, 2025, the day after the attack on presidential candidate Miguel Uribe. (AFP)
People light candles during a protest against violence and in favor of peace in Cali, Colombia, on June 8, 2025, the day after the attack on presidential candidate Miguel Uribe. (AFP)
Meanwhile, state prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo said the alleged teen gunman arrested at the scene was believed to be part of a network of "sicarios" -- or hitmen -- working for hire.
The Glock pistol he is alleged to have used was purchased legally in the US state of Arizona in 2020, according to police chief Carlos Triana.
People participate in a march for peace in Bogota on June 8, 2025, the day after the attack on presidential candidate Miguel Uribe. (AFP)
Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said authorities were working on several hypotheses to explain the attack.
Sanchez said that it could have been a message to Uribe's conservative party ahead of the 2026 elections, or an effort to destabilise the country's first-ever leftist government.
The shocking attack has already sparked a febrile political response in some quarters.
Opponents of President Gustavo Petro have accused the pugilistic left-wing leader of creating fertile ground for political violence.
Petro has joined politicians from across the political spectrum in denouncing the attempted assassination.
Powerful ex-president Alvaro Uribe -- whose term brought a bloody head-on war against left-wing guerrillas -- claimed that he had been warned by overseas intelligence of a second assassination plot, this time targeting him.