The Colombian senator Piedad Córdobaof the ruling Historical Pact, died this Saturday in Medellín (northwest) at the age of 68, confirmed the president Gustavo Petro.

“Piedad Córdoba was a woman beaten by an era and a society. He fought all his mature life for a more democratic society“, Petro stated in a message on X where he added: “As a congressman I met her and as a senator she died. “A true liberal is dead.”

Córdoba, who would turn 69 on January 25, died at the Conquistadores Clinic in Medellín as a result of a heart attack, according to the first information.

“As mayor of Medellín, I have been informed of the death of Senator Piedad Córdoba. Apparently she arrived without vital signs at the Conquistadores Clinic in Medellín. Solidarity with her family,” the city’s mayor, Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez, said in X .

Mediator

In the first decade of this century, Piedad Córdoba, at the time a senator for the Liberal Party, served as a mediator, along with the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavezfor the release of several kidnapped by the FARC guerrilla.

Due to his left-wing activism, in 2010 the then attorney general, Alejandro Ordóñez, dismissed her and disqualified her for 18 years to hold public office because he had supposedly “promoted and collaborated with the illegal group, FARC.”

The investigation began from the documents found on the computers of the former number two of the FARC, Luis Edgar Devia, alias ‘Raúl Reyes’, who was killed in a bombing by the Colombian Army in Ecuador on March 1, 2008. .

The politician, born in Medellín in 1955, was in the shadows for a few years but after her conviction was annulled He returned to politics years later answering a call from Petro.

“A fascist attorney expelled her from the Senate and mocked her constituents, I wanted to make up for the damage and helped her be part of the list of the Historical Pact, I felt she deserved it,” the president added today.

Closeness to the FARC

His leftist positions earned him many controversies because its proximity to the FARC and it was even said that in documents from that guerrilla she was mentioned with the alias ‘Teodora Bolívar’.

In January 2023, the Colombian Government extradited to the United States Álvaro Córdoba, the senator’s brother, who was requested by a court in that country for crimes related to drug trafficking.

The Colombian Government approved the extradition of Córdoba’s brother, required by the Southern District Court of New York “for the charge of conspiracy to import narcotics.”