By Luis Jaime Acosta and Gabriel Araujo
BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, who had been hospitalized since he was shot in the head in June during a campaign event, has died, his family said on Monday. He was 39.
Uribe, a potential presidential candidate from the right-wing opposition, was shot in Bogota on June 7 during a rally and underwent multiple surgeries before his death.
“I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you,” his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona wrote on social media. “Rest in peace, love of my life, I will take care of our children.”
The death of Uribe adds further tragedy to his family’s fraught history. His mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 during a botched rescue mission after she was kidnapped by the Medellin Cartel, headed by drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Uribe himself has enjoyed a rapid political rise, becoming a recognized lawmaker for the right-wing Democratic Center party and presidential hopeful known for his sharp criticism of leftist President Gustavo Petro’s administration.
At 25, he was elected to Bogota’s city council, where he was a prominent opponent of Petro, then the capital’s mayor, criticizing his handling of waste management and social programs.
In the 2022 legislative elections, Uribe led the Senate slate for the Democratic Center party with the slogan “Colombia First,” winning a seat in the chamber.
His family is prominent in Colombian politics. His maternal grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay, was Colombia’s president from 1978 to 1982, while his paternal grandfather, Rodrigo Uribe Echavarria, headed the Liberal Party and supported Virgilio Barco’s successful 1986 presidential campaign.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta and Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Bernadette Baum)
