A Colombian presidential candidate is in a vital situation after he was shot thrice – reportedly twice within the head – at a marketing campaign occasion within the capital, Bogotá.
Miguel Uribe Turbay, a 39-year-old senator, was attacked whereas addressing supporters in a park on Saturday. Police arrested a 15-year-old suspect on the scene, the lawyer normal’s workplace stated.
Uribe’s spouse, Maria Claudia Tarazona, known as on the nation to wish for his survival. “Miguel is currently fighting for his life. Let us ask God to guide the hands of the doctors who are treating him,” she stated.
Uribe’s Centro Democratico occasion condemned the assault, calling it a menace to “democracy and freedom in Colombia”.
Cellphone footage shared on-line seems to point out the second when he was shot within the head mid-speech, prompting these gathered to flee in panic.
Paramedics stated he had been shot within the knee and twice within the head, AFP information company reported. He was airlifted to a hospital the place supporters gathered to carry vigil.
Uribe underwent surgical procedure and was within the first vital hours of restoration, Bogotá Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán stated late on Saturday evening.
The 15-year-old suspect was shot within the leg whereas police and safety officers pursued him after the assault, in response to native media.
He was arrested carrying a “9mm Glock-type firearm”, a press release from the lawyer normal’s workplace stated. An investigation is below method.
The federal government of left-wing President Gustavo Petro stated it “categorically” condemned the assault as an “act of violence not only against his person, but also against democracy”.
Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned the “vile attack” and provided a 3bn peso ($730,000; £540,000) reward for details about who could also be behind it.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio additionally condemned the capturing as a “direct threat to democracy”.
He blamed the assault, with out offering examples, on “violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government”. The suspect’s motivation remains to be unknown.
Petro later urged Colombians to want Uribe nicely, on what he described as a “day of pain”, in a video tackle to the nation.
There’s a “political difference” between Uribe and the federal government, however it’s “only political”, he stated.
“What matters most today is that all Colombians focus with the energy of our hearts, with our will to live… on ensuring that Dr Miguel Uribe stays alive,” he added.
Uribe, a right-wing critic of Petro, introduced his candidacy for subsequent 12 months’s presidential election in October. He has been a senator since 2022.
He’s from a distinguished political household in Colombia, with hyperlinks to the nation’s Liberal Celebration. His father was a union chief and businessman.
His mom was Diana Turbay, a journalist who was killed in 1991 in a rescue try after she had been kidnapped by the Medellin medicine cartel run on the time by Pablo Escobar.
