Colombia Presidential Hopeful Dies After Being Shot

Police have arrested six people in connection with Uribe’s shooting, including a 15-year-old boy who was charged with attempted homicide. Later, the prosecutor in the case claimed that the minor had become “immersed in a hitman network.” All of the accused have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

The killing of Uribe, who came from a prominent Colombian political family, is for many in Colombia a grisly echo of the country’s history of political violence.

Uribe’s mother, Diana Turbay, was a journalist kidnapped by drug traffickers from the Medellin cartel under Pablo Escobar. She was murdered during a rescue operation in 1991. Uribe was then raised by his father, a city councillor in Bogota.

Uribe, a Harvard graduate, began his career in local Bogota politics, before entering the Senate in 2022. Last year, at the site where his mother was murdered, Uribe announced his candidacy for the 2026 presidential elections.

“I could have grown up seeking revenge, but I decided to do the right thing: forgive, but never forget,” he said at the time.

Uribe’s grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, served as president from 1978 to 1982, and his grandmother, Nydia Quintero Turbay de Balcazar, was the founder of Solidarity with Colombia, an activist group that promoted workers’ rights in the country.