Colombian senator Uribe recovering after assassination attempt

SOUTH AMERICA

Presidential candidate shot from behind at campaign rally amid rising political tensions

Miguel Uribe Turbay, center in blue tie, a Colombian senator and presidential candidate for the right-wing Centro Democrático party, celebrates on May 14 after voting against a labor reform referendum proposed by the government, in Bogota, Colombia. He is recovering following an assassination attempt on Saturday. FERNANDO VERGARA — ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Julie Turkewitz, Genevieve Glatsky and Simón Posada

New York Times

BOGOTA, Colombia >> A conservative Colombian senator, presidential hopeful and grandson of a former president was shot from behind at a campaign event Saturday in the capital, Bogotá, according to his party.

The shooting of the senator, Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, by unknown perpetrators comes amid escalating political tension in the country as its leftist president, Gustavo Petro, tries to push through changes to labor regulations that Uribe and other conservatives oppose.

Conflict between armed groups also continues to plague the country, though mostly in the countryside.

Beginning in the 1980s and into the early 2000s, Colombian criminal groups used kidnappings and assassinations of prominent figures to try to demonstrate strength, influence policy and sow discord. Saturday’s attack recalled a time that many Colombians believed that they had moved past.

Uribe arrived at a Bogotá hospital in critical condition, according to a statement released by the hospital, called the Santa Fe Foundation, and underwent neurosurgery and peripheral vascular surgery late Saturday.

On Sunday morning, the hospital’s medical director said that Uribe’s condition was “extremely serious.” The director, Dr. Adolfo Llinás Volpe, added that the hospital would not be releasing information about the senator’s prognosis.

Addressing the country on television near midnight, Petro condemned the attack. An underage boy had been arrested in connection with the shooting, he said, but it wasn’t clear if he was acting alone. Uribe’s security team was also being investigated for protocol failures, he said.

He said that all intelligence agencies would be devoted to identifying the mastermind behind the attack.

“No resource should be spared, not a single peso,” he said. He added, though, that “the laws and norms oblige us to protect the child for being a child.”

Authorities have not offered a motive for the shooting.

Uribe had declared his intention to seek his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election. He was not considered a leading candidate, though the election is still almost a year away.

On social platform X, the country’s defense minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he was offering a reward of up to 3 billion Colombian pesos ($730,000) for any information leading to the capture of the perpetrators.