Armed men assassinated the former mayor of Mocoa, the capital of the Putumayo province in southern Colombia.
According to the National Police, two armed men arrived at the home of former mayor Elver Ceron on Saturday afternoon and opened fire on the politician and two of his guests.
Both Ceron and one of the guests, singer Andres Fajardo, were fatally injured in the incident.
Mocoa Mayor Carlos Hugo Piedrahita told media that local authorities offered a COP50 million ($11.5 thousand) reward for information leading to the assassins.
The commander of the Putumayo police department, Lieutenant Coronel Hector Andres Rodriguez, told radio station W Radio that Ceron had not reported any death threats.
The police commander said that his police department is investigating multiple possible motives for the murder.
We are handling two hypotheses: One is that this double homicide was for political purposes, another is that the former mayor of Mocoa, Elver Ceron, had some debts he acquired during the political campaign, according to family members.
Lieutenant Coronel Hector Andres Rodriguez
Ceron, who won the Mocoa elections in 2003 and 2011, was reportedly aspiring to run for governor in the 2027 elections.
The prosecution charged the former mayor with homicide over Ceron’s alleged failure to prevent a flooding disaster that killed more than 400 people in Mocoa in 2017.
The former mayor was arrested again in 2018 over his alleged embezzlement of public funds while Ceron was mayor of Mocoa.
Ceron was arrested for a third time in 2020 for his alleged involvement in environmental crimes in Putumayo, but was absolved of these charges last year.
