Miguel Uribe, the Colombian senator and presidential hopeful who was shot in the head at a campaign event in June, has died, his wife has confirmed.
Uribe, an opposition candidate with the rightwing Centro Democrático party, was shot twice in the head and once in the leg during a campaign stop two months ago while vying for his party’s nomination for the 2026 elections. He spent nine weeks in intensive care and had several surgeries before succumbing to his injuries.
Authorities have stressed they are pursuing the “intellectual authors” of the attack, and at least three adults are facing charges of using a minor to commit a crime. Colombia’s national police director, Carlos Fernando Triana, said another arrested man, Élder José Arteaga Hernández, known as El Costeño, was among those who had orchestrated the attack.
The assassination was the worst incident of political violence in Colombia in two decades and has reignited fears of a return to the country’s bloody past when organized crime and rebel groups murdered political candidates, journalists, and judges with impunity. Between 1986 and 1990, five presidential candidates were murdered, while grassroots political activity was frequently targeted.
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