Ex-military held for attack on Colombia’s Duque wanted to return to attack in Bogotá

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The retired Colombian Army captain arrested this week for designing and executing the June 25 attack against President Iván Duque’s helicopter was planning to carry out another attack against the Colombian president in Bogotá, the government revealed on Saturday.

The Attorney General’s Office reported last Thursday the arrest of 10 dissidents of the FARC’s 33rd Front and also of former military officer Andrés Fernando Medina Rodríguez, alias “El Capi”, who had allegedly executed and designed the “criminal plan” for both the attack against the helicopter where Duque was traveling and the attack 10 days earlier with a car bomb against an army brigade.

Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano assured the media today in the city of Cúcuta, bordering Venezuela, where this attack took place, that “we have information that he intended to affect the life of the President not only in Cúcuta but also at the entrance of Bogotá.”

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For his part, in the same press conference, the director of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, assured that after the captures, it became evident “the possibility that they were planning other terrorist attacks, especially against the public forces and the Attorney General’s Office,” among them a drone attack on Operation Esparta, the elite corps of the Police.

On June 25, six shots hit the presidential helicopter – in which Duque, two of his ministers, and several regional officials, who were unharmed, were traveling – as it approached Cúcuta, capital of Norte de Santander province.

Ten days earlier, a car bomb had exploded at the headquarters of the 30th Army Brigade in Cúcuta, where U.S. military personnel were stationed, injuring 36 people.

Medina, a highly trained military and helicopter pilot who retired from service due to illness in 2016 after 12 years in service, “wanted to harm” the Americans who were in the brigade against which they attacked, according to Vargas, who did not allude to the reasons.

The Defense leader explained that “forceful actions will be carried out from the military point of view to give greater protection to Norte de Santander” and install a specific command in this department with 14,000 military personnel.

These actions seek to dismantle the FARC dissident front led by the militant known as “Jhon Mechas”, to whom the two attacks are attributed.