Presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernandez will return to Colombia on Saturday after telling journalists he would stay in Miami due to an alleged kill plot.
In a press conference, Hernandez claimed he would stay in Miami and had canceled all public appearances because of alleged plans to “stab” him on his return to Colombia.
The runner-up in the first round accused his opponent, opposition Senator Gustavo Petro, of leading a “criminal gang” that is “willing to do anything to get to power” on Twitter.
Hernandez subsequently announced that he would return to Colombia on Saturday.
The alleged corruption of runner-up in Colombia’s election race
The alleged kill plot
At the press conference, the liberal demagogue said that he “received a warning” that people would take advantage of supporters welcoming the candidate on his return to Colombia to stab him.
I have already received a warning that they are trying to kill me, and that killing is not with lead, it is with a knife. Why a knife? Because it turns out that people go to the airport to receive me… They put 4 or 5 [bodyguards] on me to protect me and when 500 people pushing… they will stab me in the middle.
Presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernandez
The 77-year-old Hernández predicted that “I’m so tough that I won’t die and stay in a wheelchair” in the event of a knife attack.
The liberal demagogue presented no evidence to support his conspiracy theory.
Attacks against Petro
Leaked video of Petro campaign meeting (Screenshot: El Tiempo)
Hernandez published a series of tweets on social media platform Twitter in which he claimed that Petro’s campaign team was a “criminal gang” and reiterated the existence of an assassination plot.
Hernandez claimed that a leaked video in which Petro’s team discussed campaign strategies to confront defeated candidate Sergio Fajardo “demonstrates they are a criminal gang.”
The video was leaked a day after media showed videos of meetings with leaders of Fajardo’s now-defunct “Center Hope Coalition” apparently recorded by the demagogue’s campaign.
Criminal charges over “espionage”
Petro’s campaign manager, Alfonso Prada, said that he would file criminal charges over the “infiltration and espionage” of the opposition campaign.
We have made the decision to denounce before the Attorney General’s Office this infiltration and espionage to which we have been subjected in the campaign of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez, and we will do the same before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, so we can carry out our activities democratically and with the guarantees for private deliberations any campaign must have.
Petro campaign manager Alfonso Prada
According to Prada, the two leaked recordings were from 10 and two months ago and released 10 days before the election in an attempt to derail the opposition campaign.
The run-off election between Petro and Hernandez is set for June 19 and has become increasingly tense.
Contradicting polls suggest that the difference in support for the two candidates is marginal.
