Is the former head of Colombia’s secret service implicated in the murder of a presidential candidate 30 years ago? He is said to have intentionally shut down personal security.
More than 30 years after the murder of left-wing presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro Leongómez in Colombia, the Attorney General’s Office has launched investigations into the then head of the DAS secret service. The investigators are following up on indications that Miguel Alfredo Maza Márquez had reduced Pizarro’s personal security in the days before the assassination in order to make the attack possible, the authority said. In addition, it is being checked whether Pizarro’s bodyguards shot the perpetrator after he had already surrendered, so that he could not provide any information about the masterminds of the attack.
Pizarro was shot dead on April 26, 1990 during a flight from Bogotá to Barranquilla by an assassin with a submachine gun placed in the plane’s toilet. The bodyguards killed the perpetrator on the plane after he was already disarmed and raised his hands.
In the late 1980s, Pizarro was commander of the guerrilla organization M-19, which also included current President Gustavo Petro. After the rebels laid down their arms, he ran for president. During the armed conflict in Colombia, left-wing politicians in particular were repeatedly the victims of attacks. A month before the attack on Pizarro, the presidential candidate of the left-wing Unión Patriótica, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, had been shot dead by a hitman.
Source: Stern
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