Colombian Rebels Are Accused of Plot to Kill Attorney General

BOGOTÁ, Colombia—Five high-ranking Colombian rebels met in Venezuela to hatch a plot to assassinate the Colombian attorney general as their ELN guerrilla group prepared to embark on peace talks with the Bogotá government, his chief deputy said Wednesday.

Deputy Attorney General Martha Mancera said that prosecutors are investigating a plan in which a guerrilla sharpshooter would be used to kill her boss, Attorney General Francisco Barbosa. Her announcement came days after the ELN, which stands for National Liberation Army, entered into a six-month bilateral cease-fire agreement with President Gustavo Petro as a prelude to peace negotiations to end the group’s 59-year conflict with the state.

“We began to obtain information from sources 30 days ago,” Mancera told reporters in the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

No attack has been launched against Barbosa. His office said his security detail is now being reinforced.

The ELN, a Cuba-inspired group that operates in several regions of Colombia and in Venezuela, said on social media that the news was false and intended to “sabotage the dialogue that is developing between the government and the ELN.”

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that separate warnings about the plot came from its own investigative arm, the intelligence division of Colombia’s Armed Forces and a police unit that investigates organized crime.

Officials said that the planned attack on Barbosa was to be carried out by a member of an ELN urban unit under the command of a man only known by his alias, Rolo. The attorney general’s office said that suspicious financial transactions worth about $750,000 and linked to Rolo had been detected, moving in a way similar to the transactions that investigators had seen with an ELN unit accused in the 2019 bombing of a police academy in Bogotá in which 22 cadets were killed.

“According to the information from sources in the neighboring country of Venezuela, meetings were held that had to do with the possible preparation and execution of the attack against the attorney general,” Mancera said.

Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva, who has worked on trying to advance talks between guerrilla groups and the government, said that the allegations needed to be investigated carefully because “this could perfectly be a bomb against the peace process.”

“It’s important to establish the truth,” he said.

Otty Patiño, the government’s chief negotiator with the ELN, told Colombia’s Blu Radio that the allegations are “very serious because they also compromise Venezuela at a time when relations with that country are being resumed.”

Venezuela’s government, headed by President Nicolás Maduro, didn’t return messages seeking comment. His regime has in recent years deepened ties with the ELN, giving the group free rein to run wildcat gold mines and traffic drugs in Venezuela in exchange for providing muscle for the government, Colombian and U.S. officials have said.

It couldn’t be determined what the motivation would be to attack Barbosa. He has in the past raised questions on government plans to be lenient with members of armed groups that surrender. But he has also lifted warrants on 29 ELN rebels to permit them to engage in talks with the president’s negotiators.

 “A big reason why there are negotiations in which a peace process is being discussed is because the attorney general’s office has suspended arrest warrants against those people,” Mancera said.

—Jenny Carolina González contributed to this article.

Write to Juan Forero at [email protected]