Car Bomb Kills at Least 15 Outside Medellin Bullring

A car bomb exploded outside a Medellin bullring Saturday night, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 125 others, fire department officials said.

The explosion at the Macarena bullring apparently was aimed at a carload of police officers who were providing security, officials said. They said no one claimed responsibility for the bombing. The victims included six police officers.

The car was parked under a bridge outside the arena. The explosion ripped apart the bridge and blasted people and cars into the air, a radio reporter said.

Many of the victims were among the crowd of about 10,000 people that was flooding out of the arena after the bullfight, which ended just before the bombing, police said.

Some 250 police officers were killed last year in attacks by the Medellin cocaine cartel. Drug traffickers said they were retaliating for a government crackdown that began in 1989.

Colombia also has been shaken by guerrilla attacks, which have resulted in more than 300 deaths this year.

The drug cartel called an end to its bombing campaign last July in what it said was a peace overture to the government. The cartel said in a statement last week that it would maintain its truce.

Earlier Saturday, Medellin police said the cousin of President Cesar Gaviria was found slain on his coffee plantation after being kidnaped by members of the Medellin cartel.

Fortunato Gaviria Botero, the 39-year-old former governor of western Caldas state, apparently died of wounds suffered Wednesday while resisting his kidnapers, according to a police report.

Police had blamed the kidnaping on the drug traffickers, who are holding two other hostages in order to pressure the Gaviria administration into passing a constitutional clause prohibiting extradition.

Reputed drug trafficker Juan David Ochoa turned himself in to authorities Saturday in Turbo, near the border with Panama, under the government’s current program, which offers lenient sentences and a promise not to extradite traffickers who surrender.

Ochoa became the third person in his family to turn himself in under the plan.

Ochoa, charged by a Miami court with cocaine distribution, is one of the 10 Colombian drug suspects most wanted by U.S. authorities. Ochoa, his brothers Fabio and Jorge Luis, and drug boss Pablo Escobar are charged with supervising a shipment of cocaine through Nicaragua to the United States in the early 1980s, according to the Miami indictment.

Escobar is the only leading cartel founder still at large.