Colombia's president claims he escaped an assassination attempt. Who is Gustavo Petro afraid of?
Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia Photo: Handout / AFP / Profimedia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Tuesday that he escaped an assassination attempt on Monday during a helicopter trip, notes AFP, taken over by Agerpres.
During a live cabinet meeting, Gustavo Petro explained that the helicopter carrying him could not land as planned in the Cordoba department on Colombia's Caribbean coast because his security team feared the aircraft would be opened fire.
“I flew for four hours and ended up where it was not planned, running to avoid being killed,” he explained.
The leftist president, in power since 2022, has been saying for months that armed networks with links to drug trafficking are plotting to assassinate him. The alleged plot would involve drug traffickers living outside the country and local guerrillas, such as Ivan Mordisco, the country's most wanted criminal who leads the main dissident faction of former FARC guerrillas that did not sign the 2016 peace accord.
Córdoba is home to the Clan del Golfo, the country's largest drug cartel, which last week announced its decision to suspend ongoing peace talks in Qatar, which began in September with the government.
The cartel reacted in this way to the joint decision of President Petro and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, during their first meeting in Washington, to prioritize military actions against three leaders of criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, including Chiquito Malo, head of the Clan del Golfo.
Gustavo Petro, the country's first left-wing president, also denounced an alleged assassination attempt in 2024.
His announcement comes amid a resurgence of political violence three months before Colombia's next presidential election. The constitution prohibits the incumbent president from running for a second term.
Petro also announced the kidnapping of indigenous senator Aida Quilcué on Tuesday in an area controlled by the guerrillas in southwestern Colombia.
Numerous leftist political and social leaders have been assassinated in Colombia in the past, including presidential candidates, victims of drug traffickers, paramilitary groups or the army.
