Colombian presidential candidate in critical condition after being shot multiple times in Bogotá

Gunman detained is allegedly 15. Episode calls up shades of violent political history

Presidential candidate, Senator, and leader of far-right opposition party Centro Democratico, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was shot three times, including twice in the head, in Bogotá, Colombia, at a campaign event Saturday afternoon.

As of 4 a.m. Sunday morning, he was struggling for his life in “critical condition” according to medical staff at the Santa Fe hospital in the north of the city.

The 39-year-old senator was giving a speech to a small crowd when he was shot at point-blank range several times in front of the audience. Videos from the scene showed Uribe unconscious, being attended by his security team before he was evacuated for emergency care.

The episode conjures up dark memories of the height of Colombia’s civil war and the drug wars in the 1980s and 90s. Uribe’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was murdered by Colombian security forces as part of a botched raid on kidnappers from the Medellín cartel who had abducted her and demanded a ransom.

Bogotá’s Prosecutor's Office reported that the suspect is a 15-year-old minor (reports from other government offices have stated his age as 14) who was detained by Uribe’s bodyguards after he fled the rally on foot.

Multiple videos recorded on cell phones from those in the crowd show the suspect firing on the presidential candidate and being detained shortly after the attack. In accordance with Colombian laws regarding minors, the suspect’s name has not been released.

Prosecutors say he “was carrying a Glock pistol-type firearm (9 millimeters).” The suspect is in the Colombia Clinic, being treated for a leg injury he sustained in a shootout with Uribe’s security detail. Two other people were also wounded.

The shooter’s motive is unknown.

Miguel Uribe is a protégé of former President Alvaro Uribe and the grandson of former President Julio Cesar Turbay. At the time of the assassination attempt, Uribe was campaigning to become the Cento Democratico’s candidate in the 2026 presidential elections.

The assassination attempt was widely condemned across the political spectrum, including by Leftist President Gustavo Petro.

“We all know that there is a political distance between the Uribe Turbay family and the government,” he said in an address to the nation Sunday night, “but this political distance is peaceful and in the realm of politics...and we have always demanded that it be free of violence as well.”

Petro has just over a year left in office. Presidents are ineligible for re-election under the Colombian constitution. Election season has not yet officially started, but “pre-candidates” have already begun campaigning for their parties’ nominations. Uribe was polling well behind other candidates for Centro Democratico, and is a dark horse for presidential victory next summer.

If the teenage suspect was hired as an assassin, as many experts are currently speculating, he is unlikely to have much information about his real employers. Criminal organizations often use multiple layers of middlemen to “subcontract” killings down to young local criminals at the bottom of the pyramid, who are treated as disposable by those immediately above them.

Colombian elections often bring about spikes in violence. During gubernatorial and local elections in 2023, 18 candidates were killed in two months. But this is the first time in almost 30 years that a presidential candidate has been killed.

Killings of politicians in recent years have been most-often linked to organized crime groups, or non-state armed actors, imposing their will on the regions they control, or eliminating candidates they view as unfavorable.

Some members of Uribe’s party have tried to hang the blame for the attempted murder on Petro, criticizing what they call “divisive” and “polarizing” rhetoric. But as of the filing time of this article, no evidence had emerged that the motive for the killing was political.

It does, however, bear all the hallmarks of how underworld contract killings typically work in a country that has been plagued by rising violence in recent years.

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