BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, who has been hospitalized since he was shot in the head earlier this month during a campaign event, has been transferred to emergency surgery for a
Colombian Senator Uribe Emerges from Surgery in Critical Condition
By Julia Symmes Cobb
BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, who has been hospitalized since he was shot in the head earlier this month during a campaign event, is out of an emergency surgery performed on Monday but is in "extremely critical" condition, the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said on Monday.
Uribe, 39, a potential presidential candidate from the right-wing opposition, was shot in Bogota on June 7 during a rally.
"Patient Miguel Uribe Turbay is out of surgery and his condition is extremely critical, characterized by a persistent cerebral edema and difficult to control inter-cerebral bleeding," the hospital said in a statement, adding that his condition is of "maximum seriousness."
The more than six-hour surgery was Uribe's third since he was shot. He was rushed into emergency surgery for bleeding in his brain on Monday morning, the hospital said, after undergoing another surgical procedure that was complementary to his original operation.
"I've come out to again ask all Colombians, appealing to their good hearts, to the love they feel for Miguel, for my family and for Colombia, for us to hold a mass prayer. Today is crucial," his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona told journalists outside the hospital.
The shooting, which was caught on video, recalled a streak of candidate assassinations in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when fighting between armed guerrillas, paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and state security forces touched the lives of many Colombians.
Marches were held on Sunday around the country to call for peace, and several vigils for Uribe's health have taken place. Three suspects, including a 15-year-old alleged to be the shooter, are in custody. In a video of the teen's capture, independently verified by Reuters, he can be heard shouting that he had been hired by a local drug dealer.
An adult man and woman are also being held. The man, Carlos Eduardo Mora, has been charged for alleged involvement in planning the attack, providing the gun and being in the vehicle where the shooter changed his clothes after the attack, according to the attorney general's office.
Though the government had floated a connection between them and the shooting, the main dissident faction of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group on Friday denied responsibility for the assassination attempt on Uribe, though it did accept responsibility for a series of unrelated bombings.
Campaigning for the 2026 election is just beginning for potential candidates who want to succeed leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to advance peace efforts through negotiations and surrender deals with little success.
Uribe, a married father of one, is a senator for the right-wing Democratic Center party founded by former President Alvaro Uribe and one of several potential candidates from the group vying for support. The two men are not related.
Senator Uribe comes from a prominent political family. His grandfather Julio Cesar Turbay was president from 1978 to 1982, and his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 in a botched rescue attempt after being kidnapped by an armed group led by drug lord Pablo Escobar.
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Additional reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Alistair Bell and Bill Berkrot)
