Colombia’s leftist presidential candidate will be in Washington DC on Thursday to seek international attention over a possible attempt on his life while on campaign.
Former Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro was attacked on Friday while driving to a campaign rally in the northeastern city in Cucuta.
Video material and experts indicated that the reformist candidate came under fire, but this was denied by the prosecution on Monday.
According to Petro’s campaign team, he will visit the secretary general of the Organization American States, Luis Almagro, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights while in the United States’ capital.
Weekly Semana reported that the front-runner in the elections is seeking international pressure to adequately investigate his claims he was the victim of an assassination plot.
Colombia police opens internal investigation after attack on presidential candidate
According to the authorities, Petro’s car was attacked with rocks, but claimed that no shots were fired. The candidate has accused the jailed former mayor of Cucuta of orchestrating the attack.
The National Police announced an internal investigation over the weekend to clarify why the presidential candidate was escorted into a hostile crowd that had been attacking his supporters.
The attack and possible assassination plot have revived concerns over the possible return of extreme political violence that cost the lives of several presidential candidates in the 1990s.
Weeks before the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan a plan to kill him was discovered in Medellin. The authorities said it was an exaggeration.
Journalist Daniel Coronell
Hard-right former President Alvaro Uribe and other conservative candidates have been rallying against Petro, accusing the social democrat and anti-corruption advocate of being a communist.
Why Colombia’s establishment and Gustavo Petro don’t get along
The political situation became even more tense after the Supreme Court ordered to reopen investigations into the former president’s alleged involvement in the formation of far-right death squads in the 1990s.
According to the country’s notoriously unreliable polls, Uribe’s candidate, former Senator Ivan Duque, is going head to head with Petro.