In the midst of posthumous tributes to the deceased Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, former President Álvaro Uribe, in a speech read by the national director of the Democratic Center party, Gabriel Vallejo, harshly attacked President Gustavo Petro, accusing him of having instigated the attack suffered by the presidential candidate.
"Miguel, who was a critical and reasoned opposition leader, was murdered with the instigation of revenge induced by the president of the republic, who found it a crutch to accuse former president Turbay, our martyr's grandfather, of being a murderer and torturer", the speech stated.
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It is worth mentioning that, following his recent first instance conviction to 12 years of house arrest for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal proceedings, the former head of state was unable to attend the congressman's funeral.
"In his furious statement, the president of the republic wanted to ignore the contribution that former president Turbay and Diana, Miguel's mother, murdered by narcoterrorism, gave to the peace process with the M-19," he continued.
(You can read:
Former president Uribe accuses President Petro of instigating the murder of Uribe Turbay).
Uribe's messages refer to several tweets by President Petro on the social network X, in which he accused
former president Julio César Turbay, Miguel Uribe's maternal grandfather, of, according to him,"taking 10,000 Colombians to torture" during his administration, between 1978 and 1982, in which he confronted the guerrilla group of the April 19th Movement (M-19).
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In the history of assassinations in our country there have been political hatreds and criminal actions, but we are facing the exceptional case of the instigating presidential speech", Uribe stated.
Gustavo Petro's response
The current head of state, a former member of the aforementioned guerrilla group, who did not attend the senator's funeral at the request of the deceased senator's family, responded almost immediately to Álvaro Uribe's words.
In a brief tweet, Petro said that Uribe"is full of poison" and points out that he is unaware of the "genocide" of the Patriotic Union (UP) "and the State's participation in it".
(You may be interested in: 'Guide and teacher': the last farewell to Miguel Uribe by his father).
He also commemorated the murder of journalist and comedian Jaime Garzón, who died in an act of contract killing on August 13, 1999, committed, according to Petro, at the instigation of an advisor to his government (Uribe's), and he blames the current government, when he knows that the evidence points to the same people who murdered the UP. Now people are subjudicing, as in the past, and marking the line of the extreme right.
In another tweet, the current president mentioned the judicial analysis of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in which the State was accused of the deaths of more than 6,000 people, including presidential candidates Jaime Pardo Leal (1987) and Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa (1990), as well as congressmen, councilmen, deputies, mayors, community board leaders, union leaders, students, artists, activists and sympathizers from the cultural and teaching sectors, professionals and farmers, according to the Reiniciar Corporation, cited by the National Center for Historical Memory.
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After the judicial analysis of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the state is condemned for the death of more than 6,000 UP militants.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) August 13, 2025
Here before a coffin, they mock justice again. They committed political genocide, do not hide it
"Here, before a coffin, they are once again mocking justice. They committed political genocide, don't hide it," he concluded.
