A 15-year-old boy who admitted to inflicting fatal injuries on Colombian Sen. Miguel Uribe Turbay, a potential presidential candidate, when he shot him at a political rally in June was sentenced on Aug. 27 to seven years of detention in a youth rehabilitation facility.
The attorney general’s office said in a statement that the boy—who has not been identified because of his age—had admitted to attempted homicide and the manufacture, trafficking, carrying, or possession of firearms, accessories, parts, or ammunition during an arraignment hearing on Aug. 4.
On June 7, Uribe Turbay was wounded in the head and left leg when he was shot three times from behind while holding a rally in a park in Modelia in the Fontibón neighborhood of Bogotá, Colombia, as he campaigned ahead of the 2026 presidential elections.
The shooting was caught on camera, and the assassin could be seen stepping out of the crowd to fire several shots.
The boy was arrested near the park, and police also detained several other people.
According to the statement, a judge from Colombia’s adolescent criminal responsibility system sentenced the boy after evaluating the evidence and stipulated that he must remain in a “specialized care center” for seven years.
Accomplice Allegedly Gave Boy Gun
The statement names José Arteaga Hernández, alias Chipi, as the man who provided the boy with the murder weapon, a Glock 9mm pistol. It notes that he had been driven to the area by another alleged accomplice, Carlos Eduardo Mora González.It is not clear whether the boy was offered a financial reward or some other inducement for carrying out the shooting.
The Epoch Times was unable to reach out to legal counsel representing Arteaga Hernández or Mora González.
Uribe Turbay was a strong critic of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who is not eligible for reelection in the May 2026 election.
Uribe Turbay’s grandfather was Julio César Turbay Ayala, who was Colombia’s president between 1978 and 1982.
But he was no relation to former President Álvaro Uribe, who was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for bribery and witness tampering earlier in August.
Uribe Turbay’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel in 1991. She was then killed during a botched rescue mission.
Her death became the basis for Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez’s 1996 book, “News of a Kidnapping.”
Uribe Turbay was first elected as a Bogotá city councilor at age 25. He represented the Liberal Party, which his grandfather had represented.
Since 2022, he represented Democratic Centre, a conservative party, as a senator.
Candidate’s Father Makes Presidential Bid
At a launch event in Bogotá, Uribe Londoño, 72, said: “Together we can build a secure Colombia where people will not fear going out into the streets and where business owners will not have to make extortion payments [to gangs].“A democratic Colombia, where the government does not foment divisions between the rich and the poor, whites or blacks, or those who are on the left or on the right.”
Uribe Londoño was a senator for Colombia’s Conservative Party in the early 1990s but gained prominence during his son’s nationally televised funeral on Aug. 13, when he delivered a speech in which he said the country had descended into “madness” under Petro.
Uribe Londoño is one of five candidates running to be the Democratic Centre’s candidate in the May 2026 election.
With Petro, a former member of the M-19 terrorist group, unable to stand in the election, eight people are seeking to become the candidate for his Historic Pact for Colombia, a multiparty coalition.
He also said he would persuade another terrorist group, the National Liberation Army, to lay down its arms, but in January, he suspended talks with the group.
Petro has attempted to broker peace deals with the nation’s remaining rebel groups and granted many of them cease-fires in an effort to boost negotiations. These peace talks have yielded few results, and critics of the president say they have helped the rebel groups to become stronger.
