Three agents of Colombia’s now-defunct intelligence agency DAS carried out the assassination of a socialist candidate in the presidential elections of 1990.
The March 3 1989 attack inside Bogota’s El Dorado airport killed candidate Jose Antequera and a bystander, and injured seven others, including former President Ernesto Samper.
The DAS officials who allegedly carried out the attack were part of Antequera’s security detail.
Until Thursday, authorities claimed that the assassination was carried out by the man who was killed by the politician’s bodyguards during the attack.
The prosecution now claims that the 21-year-old Luis Fernando Mona did not fire the MAC-10 submachine gun that killed Antequera, but was one of the victims.
The alleged conspiracy
According to the prosecution, the three former DAS agents were part of a larger assassination squad that carried out the El Dorado terrorist attack.
The plan allegedly was that former DAS agent Didier Augusto Hernandez and other assassins would open indiscriminately open fire on the counter where Antequera was boarding.
Meanwhile, DAS agents Carlos Alberto Cortes and Rodolfo Sanjuan allegedly were in charge of killing a young man who would be blamed for the assassination.
In the chaos that followed the attack, the DAS agents allegedly planted Hernandez’s gun on the body of the randomly picked victim who would falsely be held responsible for the assassination for more than 34 years.
Samper ended up injured accidentally because the Liberal Party politician wanted to greet his rival in the 1990 elections.
The extermination campaign
The prosecution’s latest accusations raise questions about the assassination of another leftist candidate in the 1990 presidential elections, Francisco Pizarro.
The former leader of the M-19 guerrilla group was assassinated on board a flight between Bogota and the Caribbean city of Barranquilla in April 1990.
This assassination was also blamed on a man who was killed by bodyguards provided by the DAS.
According to war crimes tribunal JEP, 5,700 leaders and members of Antequera’s political party have been killed after 1985.
The extermination of this leftist party has been attributed to State security and intelligence officials in collusion with the AUC and organized crime.
