A former council member and mayoral candidate in Colombia’s northern state of Santander was killed on Thursday night by two men on a motorcycle.
Blas Antonio Morales was killed by a bullet to the chest from a passing motorcycle on Thursday as he was leaving his house to travel to Bogota, having survived two previous assassination attempts, according to a colleague and regional Green Party coordinator.
Morales was a former council member for the opposition Green Party in the Pueblo Viejo municipality of the coastal state of Magdalena.
Morales had also run for mayor in October 2011 and lost by a close 3% margin to a candidate from the Radical Change Party. After the election, there were two unsuccessful attempts on Morales’ life.
The first assassination attempt was in January 2012 when a grenade was thrown at his house. A month later, hit men killed his 67 year old father, according to newspaper Vanguardia Liberal.
The second attempt on his life was made by assassins on a motorcycle in the northern city of Barranquilla. Morales was hit on his arm and in his chest, wounds from which he recovered.
Morales would not be so lucky a third time.
According to a fellow party member and regional coordinator for the Green Party, Hector Pizarro, Morales was himself displaced and very interested in land and fishing policies.
Morales had reached out to Colombia’s National Protection Unit (UNP) for a security detail, and according to Vanguardia, a police patrol would periodically pass by his house.
Last week, a Colombian journalist was gunned down just three weeks after the same protection agency assigned to Morales called off his protection scheme.
Journalist Carlos Cervantes was murdered two weeks after receiving his final death threats that went as far back as 2010.
MORE: Colombia journalist gunned down after years of death threats
Sources
- ELECCIONES OCTUBRE 30 DE 2011 PUEBLOVIEJO (MAGDALENA)
- Asesinaron en Floridablanca a un exconcejal del Magdalena (Vanguardia Liberal)
- Interview with Hector Pizarro
