Teen who shot Colombian presidential hopeful sentenced to 7 years at youth detention facility

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A teenager who admitted shooting Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay during a political rally was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years of detention at a youth rehabilitation facility.

The sentence, announced by Colombia's Attorney General's Office, comes more than two weeks after Uribe died from the injuries he suffered in the June 7 attack. The shooting alarmed Colombians, recalling some of the darkest chapters of the country’s drug-fueled violence.

The Attorney General's Office in a statement said the charges against the 15-year-old boy included attempted homicide and the manufacture, trafficking, carrying or possession of firearms, accessories, parts or ammunition.

Uribe was shot three times, twice in the head, while giving a campaign speech in a park in a working-class neighborhood in the capital, Bogota. He remained in an intensive care unit in serious condition with episodes of slight improvement until his death on Aug. 11.

Authorities arrested the teenager near the crime scene. They later took into custody five other people, but they have not determined who ordered the attack or why.

The shooting, caught on multiple videos, alarmed Colombians who have not seen this kind of political violence against presidential candidates since Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar declared war on the state in the 1990s.

Uribe, one of the strongest critics of Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, in October announced his plans to run for the presidency. Petro, the first leftist to govern Colombia, is not eligible for reelection in the May 2026 contest.

Uribe's father, Miguel Uribe Londoño, entered the presidential race Tuesday in what he said is an effort to keep his son’s legacy alive and build a safer and more prosperous Colombia.