Colombia Presidential Candidate Slain : Cocaine Barons Admit Drawing Lots on Who Was to Be Killed

A former guerrilla leader who joined the presidential race last month was killed today by an assailant who opened fire with a machine gun aboard an airliner carrying more than 100 people.

Cocaine barons who said they drew lots to decide which presidential candidate to kill claimed responsibility for the assassination of Carlos Pizarro, 39, Colombian radio reported.

The assailant was killed by the candidate’s bodyguards, police said. The plane returned to Bogota, where the leftist politician died one hour after being admitted to a hospital, officials at the hospital said.

Radio reports said about 120 people were aboard the Avianca Boeing 727 but that no other passengers or crew members were injured in the shoot-out, which occurred shortly after the plane left Bogota on a domestic flight.

Pizarro was the third presidential contender killed since August, 1989, in Colombia, which is engaged in brutal battles with drug cartels, leftist guerrillas and right-wing death squads.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Pizarro’s slaying.

Caracol radio said in a report from the hospital where the candidate was taken that he was hit by 15 bullets, including three in the head.

The unidentified assailant opened fire 10 minutes into the flight, which was heading to the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, a spokesman for the national police said.

The assailant emerged from a lavatory aboard the plane, drew the machine gun from a black leather jacket, and opened fire on Pizarro, the spokesman said.

Pizarro and his bodyguards were seated near the rear of the plane. The bodyguards opened fire, killing the assailant, the police spokesman said. Officials in Pizarro’s political party said at least six bodyguards were aboard the flight.

Pizarro was commander of the leftist M-19 guerrilla movement, which disbanded March 8 and surrendered its weapons. The group became a political party, with Pizarro as its candidate for the May 27 presidential election.

M-19 takes its name from the date of a presidential election on April 19, 1970, that the group claims was fraudulent.

As a guerrilla leader, Pizarro commanded 900 fighters, who opposed capitalism and what they viewed as U.S. imperialism. In its most daring operation, the guerrilla group captured the Palace of Justice in a 1985 assault that left 115 people dead, including 11 Supreme Court justices.

On March 22, another leftist presidential candidate, Bernardo Jaramillo, was killed in a hail of machine gun fire from an assassin at Bogota’s airport.

Jaramillo represented the leftist Patriotic Union Party. The government blamed drug traffickers for the killing, but party members blamed right-wing death squads.

On Aug. 18, Sen. Luis Carlos Galan, an anti-drug crusader and a governing Liberal Party presidential candidate, was assassinated by drug traffickers at a rally outside Bogota.