1 Killed, 48 Hurt in Bombing at Colombia Politician’s Home

A powerful car bomb rocked a residential district in the northwestern city of Medellin early Monday, killing a woman and injuring at least 48 people, police said.

About 120 pounds of dynamite packed into a minibus blew up outside the house of Juan Gomez Martinez, a regional newspaper executive and former provincial governor.

The Colombian government said it suspected drug cartels were behind the blast. President Ernesto Samper vowed not to bow to terrorist violence from drug traffickers.

“We will not allow the specter of narco-terrorism to return to this country and intimidate us,” he told reporters. “The state will combat these acts of violence head-on.”

Five unidentified assailants, one of them a woman, opened fire on private security guards near Gomez’s home before the bomb went off about 5:30 a.m., Medellin police chief Gen. Alfredo Salgado said.

He said three houses were destroyed and 15 were seriously damaged by the explosion. Other reports said 13 commercial buildings were damaged.

The dead woman was identified as Lucia Cevallos de Bernal, 60, who lived nearby. Gomez was out of town, but one of his three sons was injured. At least four other people were hospitalized.

The attack came four days after the Colombian Congress approved a tough new law to strip Colombia’s cocaine barons of their multibillion-dollar fortunes. Those gains are estimated at $2.5 billion nationwide.

Gomez is a member of the opposition Social Conservative Party and co-owner of the regional newspaper El Colombiano. The paper has its headquarters in Medellin, once home to the world’s most powerful cocaine cartel.

In another incident, three prison officials were shot dead in Medellin by motorcycle assassins wielding high-powered assault rifles Monday night, police said.

The men were killed as they drove by car through a western district of the city.

A police spokesman said one of the dead, a retired police major, worked in Medellin’s Bellavista jail but was soon due to transfer to a jail in Cali, home to the powerful Cali drug cartel.

Another victim was the director of the prisons service in southwest Valle del Cauca province, whose main city is Cali. The third man killed also was a prison officer.

Four unidentified gunmen on two motorcycles riddled the men’s car with bullets using AK-47 assault weapons, the police spokesman said.

There was no immediate indication whether the killings were linked to the bombing earlier in the day.