Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos offered a COP500 million reward ($272,000) for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the car bomb that caused millions of dollars of damage in Bogota on Thursday.
The president announced the reward on Friday in the Cauca department.
Santos said that he hoped the reward would enable authorities to arrest the perpetrators of the apparent attack on popular station Caracol Radio “as soon as possible,” and promised measures to prevent similar terrorist attacks.
“We will come up with an effective strategy to continue consolidating – like we have in the campaign – democratic security and tranquility in every corner of the country,” the president said.
According to Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS, it is probable that the FARC is behind the attack. DAS director Felipe Muñoz told newspaper El Espectador that authorities do not have a definitive hypothesis on the perpetrators of the attack, but said that Grannobles is one of the FARC guerrillas in charge of orchestrating terrorist attacks on Bogota.
In a recording intercepted by the army before the second-round presidential election in June, the Grannobles orders a FARC unit to travel to Bogota to execute attacks.
Meanwhile, Bogota authorities increased security measures around the offices of the country’s radio and television stations and newspapers.
“We have increased the security of the offices of the media and other locations in the city as a preventive measure,” a high police official told press.
However, Dario Arizmendi, who was about to start his news broadcast on Caracol when the explosion occurred, claims that security forces in charge of the safety of his radio station had been withdrawn three weeks before the attack.
Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera told press he would investigate this accusation.
The Thursday bombing left between nine and 35 people injured.