Miguel Uibe Turbay, Colombian presidential senator and candidate dies, after the attack he suffered in Bogotá

The Colombian senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay died on Monday due to the shots he received on Saturday June 7 in Bogotá, when he intervened in a campaign act. The 39-year-old politician was the son of murdered journalist Diana Turbay and grandson of former president Julio César Turbay Ayala, and died at the Santa Fe Foundation, the clinic to which she had been transferred on the day of the attack. His wife, María Claudia Tarazona, confirmed the news on her Instagram account: “Our love transcends this physical plane. Wait for me, when my promise with our children, I will pick you up and we will have our second chance,” he published on the social network.

Uiban’s state of health had worsened in the early hours of Saturday. After an intervention scheduled for the start of the hour, he had presented “acute intracerebral bleeding” which forced another surgical intervention, this time urgently. A few hours later, in the afternoon, the clinic reported that the senator’s state was “extremely critical” for “persistent brain edema” and “an intracerebral bleeding of difficult control”.

The Santa Fe Foundation reported that Uribe Turbay died at 1.56 local time (8.56 Spanish peninsular times). “The team in charge of care of Mr. Uibe Turbay in all areas of the institution has worked tirelessly during these two months for more than its seriously injured income,” the institution said in a statement.

Former president Álvaro Uibe Vélez, head of the political party to whom Uibe Turbay belonged, the Democratic Center, deplored death: “The evil destroyed everything, they killed hope,” said Uibe Vélez, without a family relationship with the senator and the presidential candidate. The man who ruled Colombia between 2002 and 2010 was recently found guilty of manipulation of witnesses and comes down to a 12 -year domestic sentence awaiting a second decision of instance. In the same sense, the former conservative president Iván Duque (2018-2022) ruled, who assured that “Colombia cries, but will not go to the criminals who have disabled the life of an admirable young man”.

The political party politician, the main opponent of the government of Gustavo Petro, received several shots by intervening in a public event in the Modelia district, west of the capital. Through several videos, the exact moment could be seen, about five in the afternoon, in which several blows are heard and Uribe falls to the ground of the improvised platform in which he talked about his campaign proposals. The politician’s escorts reacted immediately and took him to a neighboring clinic. A few hours later, he was transferred by ambulance to the Santa Fe clinic, in the north of Bogotá, one of the best in the city, where he stayed in critical condition since then and where he died.

The sister of Uibe Turbay also deplored the death of the senator with the publication of an Instagram photo, where they appear as children with her mother, Diana Turbay, a renowned journalist who was kidnapped by the drug lords led by Pablo Escobar and died in a rescue attempt. “I am sure that our mother, who loves you so much, receives you today with open arms,” said María Carolina Hoyos Turbay.

Authorities almost immediately captured a child under the age of 14 as a equipment responsible for the attack. The surveys continue, there are already two other detainees, and the President of the Republic said that no hypothesis was excluded.

The attack on the candidate shocked a country that immediately launched the murders who established themselves from terror in the late 1980s and at the beginning of the eighty presidential and recognized political candidates, such as Bernardo Jaramillo, Carlos Pizarro or the father of the current mayor, Luis Carlos Galán. The senator leaves his wife María Claudia Tarazona, three daughters of her whom he had welcomed as a four -year -old father and son. At this age, Uribay Turbay lost her mother, Diana Turbay.

Uibe Turbay was a lawyer at the University of Los Andes with Master in Harvard Public Administration. He showed his political vein from a young age. With only 25 years, in 2012, he launched and was elected advisor to Bogotá by the Liberal Party, his grandfather and one of the two traditional Colombian bipartisanist teams. During his four years in this position, he stood out as one of the most critical voices of the then mayor and today president, by Gustavo Petro, and an increasing figure in political law.

The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, expressed his “deep sadness” for the “tragic death of the Colombian senator”: “The United States sympathizes with his family and the Colombian people, both in their duel and the demanding justice for those responsible,” he published in his account X.

From the Senate, Uibe was consolidated as one of the main voices of the opposition to President Gustavo Petro, with a discourse focused on the defense of security and institutions, criticizing the total peace policy with which the government tried to negotiate in parallel with the various illegal groups of the country, and in general, the presidential proposals.