Sawt Falasteen - Colombia buries assassinated presidential candidate

The 39-year-old conservative senator was shot in June while campaigning in the capital, Bogota, and died this week of his injuries.

"Our country is going through the darkest, saddest, and most painful days," Maria Claudia Tarazona told a packed cathedral funeral service as she prepared to bury her husband.

Police have blamed Uribe's murder on dissident left-wing guerrillas. For most Colombians, the assassination represented a shocking spasm of political violence after years of relative peace.

Four presidential candidates were assassinated during the 1980s and 1990s, as cocaine cartels and various armed groups terrorized the country.

Uribe's own mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a botched 1991 police operation to free her from cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel.

On Wednesday Uribe's father, Miguel Uribe Londono, remembered the day 34 years ago when she was killed.

"With all the pain in my soul, I had to tell a little boy of barely four years old the horrendous news of his mother's murder," he said at the service.

"In this same holy cathedral, I carried Miguel in one arm and the coffin of his mother, Diana, in the other."

"Today, 34 years later, this senseless violence also takes from me that same little boy," he said.

Uribe's wife vowed that his death at the hands of a suspected 15-year-old hitman would not be in vain, and that his young son and stepdaughters would live a life filled with love.

"Miguel, I will love you every day of my life until my time comes to meet you in heaven," she said.

"I promise to give Alejandro and the girls a life full of love and happiness, without hatred and without resentment".

Colombia will hold elections in 2026 to replace incumbent leftist leader Gustavo Petro, who is constitutionally barred from running again.

Petro, himself a former guerrilla, said he chose not to attend Wednesday's funeral at the family's request.

"We're not going, not because we didn't want to," he posted on social media. "We simply respect the family and we avoid the funeral of Senator Miguel Uribe from being taken over by supporters of hate".

It was expected that some of those marking their respects may have booed the president, who has taken a conciliatory approach to armed groups.

Former presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Cesar Gaviria attended the funeral.

B.AbuZeid--SF-PST