# Colombian teen shooter gets seven years in juvenile detention over Miguel Uribe killing
On event date 2025-08-27, Colombian prosecutors said the 15-year-old who shot presidential candidate Miguel Uribe had been sentenced to seven years in juvenile detention.
The evidence package says the teen will remain in a specialised care centre for the full term. He had been charged with attempted murder and illegal possession of weapons rather than homicide, because Colombian law does not allow charges to be changed after a minor defendant has accepted them. That legal rule explains why the sentencing is framed around the original charges even though the victim later died.
Miguel Uribe, a 39-year-old right-wing opposition politician, was shot in the head during a campaign event in Bogota in June and died on August 11 after months in intensive care and multiple surgeries. The case revived memories of Colombia’s most violent political period and added a new layer of concern about the country’s security environment.
The evidence says the teenager fired three times, including twice to the head, before Uribe’s bodyguards wounded and detained him. Five other adults have also been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with aggravated homicide. Police have pointed to a dissident wing of the former FARC guerrilla group as the possible organiser.
The source material does not say the sentencing closes the wider investigation. Instead, it suggests the opposite: one defendant has been adjudicated through the juvenile system, while authorities continue to pursue others they believe helped plan the assassination.
Uribe’s killing was especially shocking because it happened in public, during a campaign event, and because it echoed earlier eras of political assassination in Colombia. The evidence explicitly compares it with the worst years of political violence when several presidential candidates were killed in the second half of the twentieth century.
The broader security context is also grim. The package notes that twin guerrilla attacks in recent weeks killed 19 people, including a truck bomb in Cali and a drone attack that brought down a police helicopter. Those attacks reinforced the sense that militant violence remains a major threat despite years of peace efforts.
For Colombia, the sentence against the minor may bring a procedural end to one part of the case, but it leaves the larger questions unresolved: who ordered the attack, how it was organised, and whether the state can prevent similar acts during future campaigns.
The seven-year term is therefore both a punishment and a marker of how serious the case remains. It confirms the shooter’s responsibility under juvenile law while keeping attention on the network of adults and possible armed actors that prosecutors believe stood behind the assassination.
