Widow of Senator Uribe Turbay: "One and a half million dollars came out of Venezuela to finance the crime"
María Claudia Tarazona claims that Venezuelan funds financed the murder of her husband. Eight convicted, but the intellectual author remains at large.
Widow of Colombian senator points to Venezuela and Maduro regime in crime
According to abc.es, María Claudia Tarazona, widow of Colombian senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, asserts that she has evidence that more than 1.5 million dollars from Venezuela were used to finance the assassination of her husband. She made the statement during an interview granted to the Spanish media outlet in Madrid, where she is this week to present the Miguel Uribe Turbay Foundation.
Uribe Turbay, 39 years old and pre-candidate for the Presidency of Colombia for the Democratic Centre, was shot on 7 June 2025 during a campaign rally in Bogotá. A teenager shot him three times. The senator died 64 days later, on 11 August 2025.
Venezuelan money and coordination from Congress
"Today we have certainty, and it is a proven fact within all the investigation, that more than 1.5 million dollars were brought from Venezuela and handed over to El Viejo," Tarazona declared, referring to Simeón Pérez Marroquín, already convicted to more than 22 years in prison and identified as coordinator of the operation in Bogotá. "He said that money came from Venezuela," she added.
Tarazona was direct in pointing to Nicolás Maduro's regime: "We know that not a single peso, nor absolutely anything, moves without the approval and coordination of Maduro's dictatorial regime."
Beyond Venezuela, the widow points to members of the Commons group—a party founded by the FARC following the peace process and represented in Congress by Sandra Ramírez and Marcos Calarcá—as part of the coordination chain. According to her, messages received after her husband's death warned: "The money came out of Venezuela" and also announced an attack against senator Paloma Valencia. Following Tarazona's complaints, Colombia's Supreme Court opened an investigation on Wednesday against Ramírez and Calarcá.
The role of the Second Marquetalia
The widow identifies two leaders of the Second Marquetalia—a FARC dissident group led by Iván Márquez—, identified as El Zarco Aldinever and Kendry Téz, as acting as articulators, coordinators and financiers of the crime. Both, according to Tarazona, enjoyed safe conducts within the framework of the so-called 'Total Peace', President Gustavo Petro's plan to demobilise criminal groups, which in her view failed.
"Gustavo Petro, between 2023 and what has transpired in 2025, publicly harassed Miguel," she stated. "In his marches he used banners with Miguel's name and videos of his, inciting people to promote hatred and ill-treatment."
Why they killed the senator, according to his widow
Tarazona maintains that the assassination responded to political and criminal power reasons. "Miguel was a great leader who was not willing to negotiate. He publicly said he was going to spray glyphosate, that he was going to end 'Total Peace' and that he would pursue the leaders of the FARC and their splinter groups. He was not, therefore, a guarantee for criminals."
The widow recalls that her husband enjoyed significant popular support and was considered a direct opponent to Petro's political project. "The Colombian people saw in him great hope. Definitely, they were not going to let him live."
Uribe Turbay also carried a family history marked by violence: his mother, Diana Turbay, was murdered by Pablo Escobar when he was four years old.
Eight convicted, the intellectual author at large
In the last fifteen months, eight people have been convicted to sentences of between 7 and 26 years in prison for their participation or collaboration in the crime. However, the alleged intellectual author remains undetained.
Tarazona has made the search for that person responsible a priority. Recent information she has shared with the Colombian Prosecutor's Office has led her to characterise the assassination of her husband as a crime of state.
A foundation in the senator's name
From Madrid, where she also visited the European Parliament in Brussels before her arrival in Spain, Tarazona presented the Miguel Uribe Turbay Foundation, a social organisation oriented, in her words, to "transform the lives of young people".
"My husband did not want any child to have to live what he lived at four years old," she said. "His pain and sadness were always a source of inspiration and purpose. Miguel gave himself deeply to a country and a cause."
Colombia has accumulated more than half a century of armed conflict with the FARC. The Peace Agreement signed a decade ago did not eliminate political violence: in 2025 a drastic spike was registered, with more than one hundred murders of a political nature, according to the abc.es report.
Source: Google News VE — Crime