A late commander of FARC dissident group Segunda Marquetalia (SM) ordered the assassination of the far-right Senator Miguel Uribe, according to the man who admitted to recruiting the assassins.
As part of a plea agreement, Simeon Perez, a.k.a. “El Viejo,” admitted before the court that he coordinated the assassination following the orders of senior SM commander “Zarco Aldinever.”
El Viejo testified that he was contacted by “Yako,” a former FARC guerrilla who rearmed in 2022, who asked him to travel to Cucuta, a city on the border with Venezuela.
“Yako told me I had to meet and talk to a member of the Segunda Marquetalia,” said El Viejo.
A few days before the senator’s murder, Kendry Téllez Álvarez, alias Yako, got out of jail and contacted me. He told me there were some good deals, but that I had to go talk to a guy at the border (…) He told me the jobs were serious—like smuggling weapons and committing murders—but that in order to get involved, I had to go meet an important person.
El Viejo
El Viejo testified that he traveled to Cucuta where he was picked up and taken to a home outside of the city.
We rode that motorcycle for about half an hour on a paved road. We turned onto a dirt road, and followed that same road to a small, ordinary house. When we got there, the guy was just there, along with two other guys who appeared to be armed. It looked like they were guarding or escorting him.
El Viejo
Zarco allegedly introduced himself and told El Viejo that he would be receiving orders from Yako after which El Viejo returned to Bogota, where he learned that his first target would be Uribe.
The FARC dissident allegedly also introduced El Viejo to “Chipi,” the gang leader whose crew would provide the gun and carry out the assassination.
According to El Viejo, Yako called him on June 7 last year and told him to “get to El Golfito park, it’s there where the thing will go down.”
I passed the information on to Chipi so he could scout the area; I never went there myself for my own safety. Chipi was the one who did the scouting… While he was at El Golfito Park, he called me again on video chat and said, “There’s a church.” He showed me the park and organized how the hit would go down.
El Viejo
As anticipated, Uribe arrived at the park for a campaign event after which one of Chipi’s youngest gang members positioned himself close to the politician and fired the fatal shots, El Viejo testified.
Uribe would succumb to his injuries on August 7, a few days after Zarco was allegedly shot and killed by rival guerrillas in Venezuela.
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