BOGOTA, Columbia (Reuters) – Eight people from a little-known urban guerrilla group have been arrested in connection with a bombing last week at an upscale mall in the Colombian capital Bogota, the police said on Saturday (June 24).
Three people were killed and eight wounded when an explosive detonated in a women’s restroom at the Andino shopping center on June 17.
Four men and four women, members of The People’s Revolutionary Movement (MRP) rebel group, were captured – half in Bogota and half in El Espinal in Tolima province, national police director Jorge Nieto told journalists.
Those arrested will be arraigned on charges including homicide and terrorism, he said.
The MRP, who have only been publicly known since late 2015, are being investigated for involvement in another 14 attacks, Nieto said.
The device, placed behind a toilet bowl, went off last Saturday afternoon amid busy Father’s Day weekend shopping.
Bogota, once the site of frequent car bombs and kidnappings, has grown safer over the past decade as the police and military increased surveillance and put more armed officials on the streets.
A peace accord signed last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s biggest guerrilla group, further raised hopes bomb attacks might be a thing of the past.
But the country’s second-largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), in February detonated a bomb outside a bull-fighting ring in Bogotá’s center, injuring dozens of police.
Both the ELN and the FARC have condemned the Andino attack.