BOGOTÁ, Colombia (BN24) — Colombian presidential candidate and conservative senator Miguel Uribe Turbay died Monday, two months after being shot in the head while delivering a campaign speech in the capital. He was 39.
Uribe, a rising political figure and one of President Gustavo Petro’s strongest critics in Congress, had been hospitalized in intensive care since the June 7 attack, which occurred as he addressed supporters in a park in a working-class Bogotá neighborhood. Authorities said he was struck three times, twice in the head, and had shown only brief signs of improvement.
His wife, María Claudia Tarazona, confirmed his death in a social media post. “Rest in peace, love of my life. I will take care of our children,” she wrote. “I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you.”
Police arrested a 15-year-old suspect at the scene and later detained several others. Officials last month identified Elder José Arteaga Hernández, known as “Chipi” or “Costeño,” as the alleged mastermind behind the shooting.
Uribe had recently announced plans to run for president in the 2026 election. The brazen daylight attack — captured on multiple videos — shocked Colombians, recalling the political violence of the early 1990s when drug lord Pablo Escobar targeted presidential candidates.
That era also claimed the life of Uribe’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, who was killed during a police rescue attempt after being kidnapped by traffickers under Escobar’s orders to stop extraditions to the United States.
A lawyer with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, Uribe entered politics at 26 as a Bogotá city councilman. In 2022, he became the top vote-getter for the conservative Democratic Center party led by former President Álvaro Uribe, to whom he was not related.
“Evil destroys everything,” the former president said on social media. “They have killed hope. May Miguel’s struggle be a light that illuminates Colombia’s path.”
