Security for Polo Democratico presidential candidate Gustavo Petro has been beefed up following revelations that the FARC plan to assassinate the leftist politician, reports CM& on Sunday.
Speaking to the press on Monday, Petro said he had received a letter from Colombian intelligence agency DAS on Thursday last week, informing him that they had information about a FARC plot to assassinate him.
After receiving information on the threat against Petro, the DAS ordered a “reevaluation of protective services from the Office of Special Protection,” in order to guarantee Petro’s security.
Petro spoke out against the death threat, vowing to take the necessary measures to continue with his campaign ahead of the elections this Sunday.
It is unclear what Petro meant by continuing with his campaign, as all candidates are barred by Colombian law from publicly campaigning in the final week before the elections.
The announcement marks the first substantiated threat that the FARC guerrilla group has made against any presidential candidates.
In April, the FARC announced their displeasure with “all” candidates in the presidential election, saying that each candidate was aligned with Uribe’s policies on the internal conflict, which they described as “the main problem facing Colombia.”
While this is the first time that the FARC have been implicated in a death threat against a candidate, it is not the first time that a threat has made against one of the candidates.
Since rising to become a front-runner in the presidential race, Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus has received several death threats from various sources. Earlier this month, a Facebook group was created called, “I promise to kill Antanas Mockus before the 30th of May,” and also this month, a threat from an anonymous caller warned that “a group of unknown people” plan to assassinate the Green Party candidate.