Colombian police have captured a fugitive accused of involvement in last month’s gun attack on Senator Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential candidate, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Saturday, marking the fifth arrest in the case.
Elder Jose Arteaga, known as El Costeno, was arrested on suspicion of inducing the 15-year-old charged with shooting the politician at a rally in Colombia’s capital Bogota on June 7 to commit the crime, the sources said.
Arteaga, who the two sources said has a long criminal record, was detained in a neighborhood in western Bogota, a day after Colombian police said Interpol issued a red notice for his arrest.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach Arteaga for comment.
Colombian police chief Carlos Fernando Triana said in a post on social media on Friday that he was wanted for “aggravated attempted homicide; manufacture, trafficking and carrying of firearms or ammunition; and use of minors for the commission of crimes.”
Uribe — a 39-year-old presidential pre-candidate for the conservative opposition Democratic Center party — was shot twice in the head and once in his left leg, according to state prosecutors. He has undergone several serious surgeries since the attack, which left him in critical condition.
Four other suspects have since been arrested, including the 15-year-old alleged shooter who was detained minutes after the attack. In a video of event, independently verified by Reuters, he can be heard shouting that he had been hired by a local drug dealer.
Uribe comes from a prominent political family.
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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.
