Colombian Drug Lord Denies Link to Murder of Candidate

Fugitive Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar on Friday denied the government’s contention that he was behind the assassination of leftist presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo.

The president of the Patriotic Union, Diego Montana Cuellar, meanwhile, said in a televised interview Friday on the news program Cinevision that his party is withdrawing from the May 27 general elections.

The Patriotic Union, Conservative and Communist parties all asked the governing Liberal Party of President Virgilio Barco Vargas to postpone the elections, saying they fear for the safety of the candidates.

The government, fearing the start of a new offensive by drug traffickers, strengthened security in the capital, Bogota, after street demonstrations Thursday by protesters accusing the government of complicity in the murder. Jaramillo, the candidate for the Patriotic Union Party, was gunned down at the main Bogota airport Thursday morning.

A telephone caller who claimed the assassination for the Medellin cocaine cartel said Cesar Gaviria, the Liberal Party presidential candidate, would be the next victim.

Jaramillo’s body was to lie in state in the National Capitol until it is flown today to his hometown of Manizales, 120 miles west of Bogota, for services.

An official government communique released Thursday accused Escobar, reputed head of the Medellin cocaine cartel, of hiring the teen-ager accused of carrying out the assassination.

“Why would I attack someone who has always shown himself to be in favor of dialogue with drug traffickers?” Escobar wrote in a letter to UP leader Montana made public Friday.

The government said the gunman was paid about $650 or $750 in advance by the Medellin cartel to kill Jaramillo, who was on his way to a Caribbean holiday with his wife.

The 40-year-old Escobar, a high-living billionaire, is the cocaine trafficker most wanted for extradition to the United States.

Jaramillo, 38, died in a Bogota hospital two hours after being shot four times in the chest and stomach by the assassin firing a submachine gun, police said.

The government identified the gunman, seized at the airport, as Andres Arturo Gutierrez of Bogota. He had not been charged.