An assassin shot and killed a presidential candidate and a relative aboard a passenger plane Thursday and was himself killed in a shootout with bodyguards of the former leftist guerrilla, radio reports said.
Reports said the Bogota-to-Barranquilla plane returned to the Colombian capital and made an emergency landing.The radio station RCN reported candidate Carlos Pizarro, 39, was shot aboard an Avianca passenger plane bound for Barranquilla.
Radio news reports said an assassin shot Pizarro, former commander of the M-19 guerrilla group, from behind and was shot by the candidate's bodyguards. The plane returned to Bogota and made an emergency landing, the reports said.
Pizarro died at the Caja Nacional de Prevision hospital, a spokesman said. RCN, citing police sources, reported Pizarro was hit by 15 bullets, including three in the head.
As a guerrilla leader, Pizarro commanded 900 fighters. His group captured the Palace of Justice in a 1985 assault that left 115 people dead, including 11 Supreme Court justices.
Another leftist presidential candidate, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa of the Patriotic Union, was assassinated March 23 at the Bogota airport by a gunman. Both right-wing death squads and the Medellin cartel were blamed for the assassination.
Thursday's assassination came a day after a car bomb exploded in Medellin, killing five people.