Miguel Uribe Turbey, a Colombian senator and presidential hopeful who was hospitalized after being shot at a campaign event more than two months ago, has passed away, his wife announced Monday.
Uribe, a potential presidential candidate for the right-wing opposition, was shot dead in his head on June 7th during a rally in the Colombian capital, Bogota.
The Santa Fe de Bogota Foundation said the hospital where Uribe was being treated was in a “dangerous condition” on Saturday due to a “hemorrhagic episode of the central nervous system.”
“I ask God to show me how to learn to live without you,” Uribe’s wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, wrote on social media to announce his death.
Ivan Duquet Marquez, the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022, paid tribute to Uribe, saying that “terrorism” took away the country as “upright and transparent leader.”
“Colombia is grieving, but will not surrender to the criminals who have taken the lives of stunning young people,” said Duque, who led the Democratic Center Party, which Uribe represented.
Alvaro Uribe, another former president with no connection to the senator, said, “Evil destroys everything. They killed hope. Miguel’s struggle could be a light that illuminates the right path for Colombia.”
Police have arrested six people in connection with the Uribe shooting, including a 15-year-old boy charged with attempted murder. The prosecutors in the case later claimed that the minors were “immersed in the Hitman Network.” All of the accused pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
The murder of Uribe from a prominent Colombian politician is a frightening echo of the country’s history of political violence for many people in Colombia.
Uribe’s mother, Diana Turbey, was a journalist who was lured by a drug trafficker at the Medellin Cartel under Pablo Escobar. She was murdered during a rescue operation in 1991. Uribe was later raised by her father, a city council member in Bogota.
A Harvard graduate, Uribe began his career in local Bogota politics before entering the Senate in 2022. Last year, Uribe announced his candidacy for the 2026 presidential election, where his mother was murdered.
“I could have grown up looking for revenge, but I decided to do the right thing.
Uribe’s grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbey Ayala, served as president from 1978 to 1982, and his grandmother, Nizia Quintero Turbey de Barcazar, was the founder of solidarity with Colombia, an activist group that promoted the rights of the country’s workers.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
