(Bogotá) The director of La Modelo prison, one of Colombia’s main penitentiary establishments, was “assassinated” Thursday in Bogota after receiving death threats from prisoners, President Gustavo Petro announced.
“Retired Colonel Elmer Fernández has just been assassinated […] while he was in his car,” Justice Minister Nestor Osuna said in a video.
Mr. Fernández “took office on April 4, he carried out disciplinary orders and carried out random searches. Today he was assassinated in a despicable way,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on the social network X.
The left-wing leader announced an “Extraordinary Security Council to define measures for all the country’s prisons”.
Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, does not usually experience the level of violence observed in the prisons of Ecuador, a neighboring country where penitentiary establishments have been the epicenter of massacres and shootings in recent months.