- National Police Chief Gen. Óscar Atehortua claims that his forces foiled a plot by two former FARC combatants to assassinate maximum FARC party leader Rodrigo Londoño. Police killed the two alleged assailants in Quindío department, apparently in self-defense, near where Londoño was vacationing. Gen. Atehortua, Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez, and National Protection Unit Director Pablo Elías González visited Londoño to tell him about the operation. They cited information that the two would-be assailants may have been sent by the FARC dissident faction led by former top leader and negotiator Iván Márquez.
- “I’m here talking to you thanks to the Police and Army of Colombia, who were always guarding my life and frustrated the assassination,” Londoño tells a Quindío newspaper.
- A top member of that faction, Henry Castellanos alias “Romaña,” denies on his Facebook page that the Márquez faction had anything to do with a plot against Londoño.
- Security analyst León Valencia tells El Tiempo, “I believe there is much resentment, and one can see it, within the FARC, but I find it hard to believe the the first one they would confront would be Timochenko [Londoño].”
- The girlfriend of one of the dead alleged hitmen cast doubt on the official story by sharing with prosecutors a WhatsApp message from him, minutes before he died, reading “My love, I’ll write you back, the Police just arrived.”
January 12, 2020