Segunda Marquetalia ordered the attack last year according to trial testimony.
Revelations that former FARC leaders ordered the 2025 killing of Miguel Uribe have heightened political tensions in the run-up to the May presidential elections.
The 39-year-old Colombian senator and presidential hopeful was gunned down by a Bogotá gang hired by the Segunda Marquetalia, an armed group created by disgruntled guerrillas hiding in Venezuela, according to testimony revealed in court.
The senator was shot down by a 15-year-old assassin at an open-air political rally in the barrio of Modelia in June, 2025. Uribe died of head wounds two months later.
After months of investigations and multiple arrests, state prosecutors were last week finally able to link the local gang that carried out the hit with the armed group.
See also: Who ordered the murder of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe?
The breakthrough came during the trial of Bogotá-based gang leader Simeón Pérez Marroquín, also known as ‘El Viejo’, who admitted he had hired the local Plata o Plomo (‘Silver or Lead’) gang to carry out the killing on behalf of the Segunda Marquetalia armed group.
“The deal was that they would pay one billion pesos [US$270,000] for the senator’s death,” said Marroquín in a statement reported by magazine Semana.
Right hand man
Confirmation of involvement by an armed group founded by former FARC leaders sparked a political spat between front-runners for the upcoming presidential election.
Right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia was quick to accuse the Petro government of negotiating peace with the Segunda Marquetalia – even while the armed group was plotting the murder of Uribe.
See also: Peace Plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank
Valencia referred to Marroquín’s statements that the hit was organized by veteran guerrilla Zarco Aldinever, the right-hand man of the group leader Iván Márquez, in early 2025.
At this time Aldinever was nominated a ‘peace manager’ by the Petro government, meaning any arrest warrants were suspended and the rebel was free to roam. This despite the collapse of peace talks with the Segunda Marquetalia at the end of 2024.
Valencia further pointed to the closeness between her main election rival Iván Cepeda and leaders of the armed group.
Old photo
“The killer of Miguel Uribe is photographed hugging Iván Cepeda,” she wrote on X, attaching a photo of her rival with Segunda Marquetalia founder Iván Márquez.
In fact, the photo of Cepeda dated from the 2016 FARC peace talks, explained President Petro in a strongly worded statement defending his friend and political ally.
“The photo shows Iván Cepeda’s attempt to help [the Santos government] achieve peace. At that time, the entire FARC was ready for peace,” said.
Iván Márquez was number two in the FARC at the time and widely respected for his role in the negotiations.
Petro went on to blame his predecessor, right-wing president Iván Duque, for undermining the FARC peace process that forced former guerrilla leaders like Márquez back to arms and the Segunda Marquetalia.
Following the 2016 deal, some former FARC leaders had been “entrapped by state prosecutors with fake drug charges”, he said, leading to extradition requests from the United States.
Faced with this legal pressure several top commanders, including Iván Márquez and Jesus Santrich, fled to Venezuela in 2018 before emerging on video a year later to announce their new incarnation as the Segunda Marquetalia, named after the village in the Tolima department where the original FARC first formed in 1964.
The armed group was active in drug trafficking and illegal mining along the Colombia-Venezuela border, in the departments such as Vichada and Guainía, according to a profile by InsightCrime. The leadership is suspected of hiding out in Venezuela.
Another study by Fundacion Ideas para La Paz estimated the group to have 530 armed combatants in 2025, an increase of 15% on 2024, and work mostly in the eastern plains of Colombia.
A hunt is on
In a press conference on Tuesday, Valencia accused Cepeda and other left-wing lawmakers of backing the former FARC commanders in their legal battles back in 2018, creating a chain of events leading to the creation of recycled armed group.
“Congressmen like Cepeda defended [Marquéz and Santrich] …and didn’t allow them to be extradited. If these thugs had been extradited, Miguel Uribe would be alive today,” she said.
In his own press statement Cepeda called Valencia’s comments “a dirty political game” and issued a challenge to the candidate, and her political mentor right-wing former president Álvaro Uribe, to back up the accusations in court.
“It’s infamy to accuse me or President Petro to have any type of involvement in such a deplorable deed as the assassination of senator and presidential pre-candidate Miguel Uribe,” he said.
Meanwhile this week the Colombian attorney general’s office launched a fresh hunt for the leaders of the Segunda Marquetalia, offering around million-dollar rewards for the capture of seven commanders including Iván Márquez and Zarco Aldinever.
In fact, Aldinever was reported killed by rival armed group ELN in Venezuela during a squabble over a cocaine shipment in August last year – the same month that Miguel Uribe died – according to Colombian state forces at the time.
This week Colombia’s Minister of Defense Pedro Sanchez walked back that claim saying no body had ever been found and that the initial report of Aldinever’s death – sent from the Segunda Marquetalia itself – could be disinformation.
“At this time, the position is clear: without a body there is no confirmation of death, and that is why all institutional resources remain active to locate him,” said Sanchez.
Underworld connections
Closer to home, the Segunda Marquetalia’s influence in Bogotá was under scrutiny after Simeón Marroquín’s testimony shed light on the murky connections with the city’s underworld.
Marroquín admitted that in previous decades he had acted as an urban operative for the FARC guerrillas, a hired gun ready to carry out orders in the city.
“I never wore camouflage, but while I was here in Bogotá, I was a miliciano. Guerrilla missions would come up, and I’d carry them out, but I was never in the ranks.”
His contacts with the FARC continued to the Segunda Marquetalia that tapped him for the Uribe killing.
Early in 2025, Marroquín was invited to a secret meeting in Cúcuta close to the Venezuelan border where, according to his testimony, Aldinever offered him one billion pesos for the crime (US$270,000) and another 600 million pesos (US$160,000) to “bribe the justice system” to deflect attention from the guerrilla group.
The motive for the killing was not clearly revealed by Marroquín, though a text message later found on his phone sent to his guerrilla paymasters talked of an “eye for an eye”, suggesting the former rebels were out for revenge.
Chilling revelation
Uribe was selected as an influential senator, scion of a right-wing political family, and popular candidate for this year’s presidential elections. He was also an easy target for assassins with his regular visits to communities where he had walkabouts to engage with local voters.
In the first few months of 2025, Marroquín worked his underworld connections to hire the Plata o Plomo gang which in turn lured the 15-year-old gunman who shot and wounded Miguel Uribe in a small park in the barrio of Modelia on June 7.
See also: Arrests made – but still questions in Uribe shooting.
Marroquín’s account paints a picture of a loose network of petty criminals lured by cash rather than political interests, ignorant of the details of both their intended target and the paymasters behind the plot.
The middleman saw the hit as a “good business opportunity” but also a chance to rekindle his role as urban operative for a guerrilla organization.
Marroquín’s plan unraveled after the 15-year-old gunman and various low-level gang members were detained in the hours and days following the June attack, creating a trail leading to his own capture in October.
“What’s done is done”
One chilling revelation was the order from above for Marroquín to kill low-level gang members to cut links to the guerrilla masterminds. This included murdering alias Gabriela, who transported the weapon and was present on the day of the shooting.
Marroquín refused to kill Gabriela, telling investigators “I didn’t have the heart for that because she was very young.” But he did send her by bus to the city of Florencia where the guerrillas were lying in wait.
The 19-year-old never made it; police investigators, already on Gabriela’s trail, organized for the bus to “break down” some miles before Florencia. Her arrest there and subsequent interrogation lead to Marroquín’s capture and eventual exposing of the links to the Segunda Marquetalia.
Last week, during the court process, Simeón Marroquín attempted to apologize for his role in the killing of Miguel Uribe.
“There are no words to justify my actions, but what’s done is done,” he said on camera from his cell, addressing his victim’s family – Uribe was married with four children – and asking forgiveness. He was then sentenced to 22 years in prison.
How quickly Colombian investigators can find Zarco Aldinever or other Segunda Marquetalia commanders, dead or alive, or hiding in Venezuela, remains to be seen.