Colombian Publisher Dead of Wounds, Kidnapers Say

A prominent newspaper publisher who was kidnaped by four gunmen died Monday from wounds sustained during his abduction, according a man who identified himself as one of the gunmen.

Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, 69, who twice ran for president and had served earlier this decade as this country’s ambassador to the United States, was kidnaped Sunday as he walked away from a Bogota church where he had attended Mass. The gunmen killed Gomez’s only bodyguard with a hail of machine-gun fire.

A man told the Bogota radio station Todelar on Monday that Gomez had died and that authorities would soon be told soon where to find his body. The man sounded like the same one who had called the radio station twice on Sunday.

In the first Sunday telephone call, the anonymous man said he was one of the kidnapers, and then the voice of Gomez was heard saying: “Oh, Oh, I’m dying.” Gomez’s wife and daughter said that they recognized Gomez’s voice. They asked the kidnapers to get medical attention for Gomez.

Five minutes later, the same man called back and then a voice speaking softly and in apparent agony was heard to day: “I’m wounded. Don’t put me in the news. I’m wounded. I’m wounded. I’ve been shot. Twice.”

Gomez was publisher of El Siglo, a Bogota morning newspaper. The phrase “Don’t put me in the news” is one Gomez used frequently with colleagues when he didn’t want them to do a story on him.

Gomez, the son of former President Laureano Gomez, was the second-ranking official of the Conservative Party after former President Misael Pastrana. His son, Mauricio Gomez, has been in Madrid for a year after fleeing Colombia because of a death threat by apparent drug traffickers.

The kidnaping came after a week of violence that left scores dead and wounded. The army and government officials said that 50 people had died during the week in clashes between leftist guerrillas and government security forces.