Colombian senator Miguel Uribe Turbay dies weeks after being shot at rally

Colombian senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay passed away on Monday as a result of the gunshot wounds he sustained on Saturday, June 7, in Bogotá, while participating in a campaign event.

The 39-year-old politician was the son of the murdered journalist Diana Turbay and the grandson of former president Julio César Turbay Ayala. He died at Fundación Santa Fe, the clinic where he had been taken 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, because when I fulfill my promise to our children, I will come to find you and we will have our second chance,” she posted on social media.

Uribe Turbay’s health worsened in the early hours of Saturday. After a scheduled surgery early that morning, he experienced “acute intracerebral bleeding” that required an emergency operation. Hours later, in the afternoon, the clinic reported that the senator’s condition was “extremely critical” due to “persistent brain swelling” and “difficult-to-control intracerebral bleeding.”

Fundación Santa Fe stated that Uribe Turbay passed away at 1:56 a.m. local time. “The team responsible for Mr. Uribe Turbay’s care in all areas of the institution worked tirelessly throughout these more than two months since his admission in critical condition,” the institution said in a statement.

Former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, leader of the political party to which Uribe Turbay belonged, the Centro Democrático, expressed his sorrow over the death: “Evil destroys everything, they killed hope,” said Uribe Vélez, who has no family relation with the senator and presidential candidate. The man who governed Colombia from 2002 to 2010 was recently convicted of witness tampering and is serving a 12-year house arrest sentence pending a second-instance decision.

Former conservative president Iván Duque (2018–2022) also expressed similar sentiments, stating that “Colombia mourns, but will not surrender to the criminals who extinguished the life of an admirable young man.”

The politician from the right-wing party, the main opposition to Gustavo Petro’s government, was shot multiple times while speaking at a public event in the Modelia neighborhood, in the western part of the capital. Several videos captured the exact moment, around 5 p.m., when gunshots were heard and Uribe fell to the ground from the makeshift stage where he was discussing his campaign proposals.

The politician’s bodyguards reacted immediately and took him to a nearby clinic. Hours later, he was transferred by ambulance to the Santa Fe clinic in northern Bogotá, one of the best in the city, where he remained in critical condition until his death.

Uribe Turbay’s sister has also mourned the senator’s death by posting a photo on Instagram, showing them as children alongside their mother, Diana Turbay — a well-known journalist who was kidnapped by drug cartel leaders under Pablo Escobar and died during a rescue attempt. “I’m sure that our mother, who loves you so much, is welcoming you today with open arms,” said María Carolina Hoyos Turbay.

Authorities almost immediately arrested a 14-year-old minor as the material perpetrator of the attack. Investigations continue, with two more detainees so far, and the president of the Republic has said that no hypothesis is being ruled out.

The attack on the pre-candidate has shocked a country that immediately recalled the assassinations that spread terror in the late 1980s and early 1990s of presidential candidates and well-known politicians such as Bernardo Jaramillo, Carlos Pizarro, and the father of the current mayor of Bogotá, Luis Carlos Galán. The senator leaves behind his wife María Claudia Tarazona, three daughters of hers whom he had taken in as a father, and a four-year-old son. At that same age, Uribe Turbay lost his mother.

Uribe Turbay was a lawyer from the Universidad de Los Andes with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard. He showed his political streak from a very young age. At just 25 years old, in 2012, he ran for and was elected councilman of Bogotá for the Liberal Party, the party of his grandfather and one of the two traditional parties in Colombia’s bipartisan system. During his four-year term, he stood out as one of the most critical voices against the then-mayor and current president, Gustavo Petro, becoming a rising figure in the political right.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed his deep sadness over the Colombian senator’s “tragic death”: “The United States stands in solidarity with his family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible,” he posted on his X account.

From the Senate, Uribe established himself as one of the main opposition voices against President Gustavo Petro, with a discourse focused on the defense of security and institutions, critical of the government’s total peace policy, which has sought to negotiate in parallel with various illegal groups in the country, and generally opposed to the presidential proposals.

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