Notorious Medellin drug czar Pablo Escobar is suspected of being behind the assassination of leftist presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo, whose slaying unleashed violent riots across the country.

Jaramillo, candidate of the Patriotic Union Party in the May 27 elections, was the second presidential candidate slain in less than a year. Liberal Party candidate Luis Carlos Galan Sarmiento was killed Aug. 18, 1989, during a surge of violence by drug traffickers.Jaramillo, 35, was shot Thursday in the chest and throat at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport and died two hours later at a clinic.

Jaramillo's alleged assassin, said to have been hired by fugitive drug czar Pablo Escobar, was wounded by the candidate's bodyguards. He was captured and taken to a hospital.

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