BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The Latest on the car bombing at a police academy in Colombia (all times local):
1:40 p.m.
Colombian authorities said they have identified the likely perpetrator of a car bombing on a Bogota police academy that left 9 dead and dozens more injured.
Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez says a man identified as Jose Aldemar Rodriguez entered the police academy around 9:30 a.m. Thursday in a Nissan pick-up loaded with 80 kilograms of explosives made of pentolite. He says the vehicle had its last official check sometime last year in the state of Arauca, along the eastern border with Venezuela.
President Ivan Duque stood alongside Martinez at the blast scene and said he would spare no effort trying to identify the masterminds of the attack, which is the bloodiest against a military or police target in the capital in more than a decade.
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12:01 p.m.
Authorities say at least nine people have been killed and more than 20 injured in a car bombing at a Colombian police academy in Bogota. The attack recalls the high-profile attacks associated with bloodiest chapters of the country’s guerrilla and drug conflicts.
The scene outside the General Santander police academy in southern Bogota is chaotic in the immediate aftermath of the mid-morning explosion, with ambulances and helicopters rushing to the normally tightly controlled facility.
Witnesses say they heard a loud blast that destroyed windows in adjacent apartment buildings several blocks away. Pictures on social media showed a charred vehicle surrounded by debris on the academy’s leafy campus.
The police said at least nine people were killed and 22 injured. Among the dead were a Panamanian and an Ecuadorian national.
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