Unidentified gunmen killed a leader of a Colombian congressional peace commission, shooting him at point-blank range in his garage after chasing him through the nation's capital, police said today.
Mr Jairo Rojas (37) who set up the first meeting between President Andres Pastrana and the leader of Colombia's largest guerrilla force, the FARC, in 1998, was killed just two hours after sending his police bodyguards home on yesterday evening.
An assistant for Mr Rojas, a member of Mr Pastrana's Conservative party, said the lawmaker had received multiple death threats.
Public officials are often the targets of violence in Colombia, and police said there were no shortage of suspects in Mr Rojas' murder - from criminal gangs to ultra-right militias and rebels fighting in Colombia's 37-year-old war.
Mr Rojas had taken over the peace commission following the December assassination of its president, Mr Diego Turbay, which was blamed on Colombia's largest rebel force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC.
It was not immediately known what effect Mr Rojas' murder would have on the flagging peace process, which is already at one of its lowest moments in years.
Mr Turbay's assassination sparked widespread controversy to the FARC's Switzerland-sized enclave, which the military are barred from entering.