Colombian presidential candidate dies after shooting at rally caught on video

Footage shows the chilling moment that a favourite to win the presidential elections in Colombia was shot by a 14-year-old hitman at a campaign rally.

Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay died today, more than two months after being shot as he gave a speech in a park in the west of Bogota. His mother was journalist Diana Turbay, who was assassinated in 1991 by Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel. She had been kidnapped in a stand-off between the drug gang and the Colombian government as they wanted to prohibit extradition to the United States. Now her 39-year-old son has died, confirmed his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona. Uribe Turbay was critically wounded on June 7 during a campaign rally, suffering gunshot wounds to the head and leg.

He underwent emergency surgery and remained hospitalized in intensive care until his death. It comes after a shark attack horror as boy, 7, had his leg shredded in an idyllic bay.

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Camera crews were recording the speech by Uribe Turbay when a 14-year-old boy went round the back of the politician and just a few metres away got out a gun and fired several times with the crowd erupting in screams and shouts.

The politician was hit twice in the head and the boy ran off but was quickly caught by police who detained him after shooting him in the leg. “We are completely aware that this youth we have caught was just the executioner, “ said chief prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo.

The boy, who used a semi automatic Glock, was also filmed as he was arrested and he was heard claiming that he was just following orders, having been paid to carry out the killing.

Footage heard him say: “It was the man from the pot, I’ll tell you who, let me give you their numbers.” Pots are areas of Bogota where small-scale drug trafficking takes place. The boy added: “Sorry I did it for money for my family.”

The attack has alarmed Colombians who haven’t seen this kind of political violence against presidential candidates since Escobar declared war on the state in the 1990s.

“If my mother was willing to give her life for a cause, how could I not do the same in life and in politics?” Uribe Turbay, who was just five when his mother was killed, said in an interview last year.

Uribe Turbay, a lawyer with a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University, entered local politics in Bogota when he was 26. In 2022, he was the biggest vote-getter in the conservative Democratic Centre party led by former President Alvaro Uribe.

“Evil destroys everything,” said the former president, on social media. “They have killed hope. May Miguel’s struggle be a light that illuminates Colombia’s path.”

Since the shooting an investigation has led to the arrest of Elder José Arteaga Hernández, alias Chipi, as the leader of a criminal gang who planned the killing but police continue to appeal to the public for information. He is among four people who have been detained by police, although authorities say that they still do not know who is the “intellectual author” of the attack.

General Carlos Fernando Triano, head of Colombian police force said that the shooting had been “out-sourced” to the gang. “It is something planned, they plotted to harm the senator and that means there is someone behind all this,” he said.

“He (Chipi) is a leader, a clever criminal who has been in prison. He organizes the work of other criminals and gave orders to a group of up to 10 people.”