BOGOTA: A prominent Colombian right-wing presidential candidate is in critical condition after being shot three times during a campaign event in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee before being detained.

Images from the scene showed Uribe slumped against the hood of a white car, smeared with blood, as a group of men tried to hold him and stop the bleeding.

A security guard managed to detain the suspected attacker, a minor who is believed to be 15 years old.
Uribe was airlifted to a hospital in “critical condition” where he underwent a “neurosurgical” and “peripheral vascular procedure,” the Santa Fe Clinic in Bogota confirmed.

He “overcame the first surgical intervention”, Bogota mayor Carlos Fernando Galan told media, and has entered “the critical hours” of recovery.

Uribe’s wife posted on his X account that he was “fighting for his life at this moment.”

Police director Carlos Fernando Triana said the suspect was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment.
Two others – a man and a woman – were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized.

“Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts,” Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, told AFP as she prayed with candles for Uribe’s health.

The motive for the attack is not yet publicly known, and Colombia’s minister of defense vowed that the military, police and intelligence services would deploy “all their capabilities” to find out what happened.

The minister, Pedro Sanchez, also announced a roughly US$725,000 reward for information about who was behind the shooting.