Priest, 45, Killed in Colombia

A priest has been killed in a brutal attack in Colombia. Two criminals ambushed the Rev. Ramón Montejo Peinado, 45, in a parking space in Ocaña on Tuesday.

They reportedly threatened him with a knife in order to steal his car. The victim was the parish priest of San José de Buenavista in Ocaña. He was on his way to a prison where he works as a chaplain.

The priest resisted the thieves who stabbed him. While fleeing in the priest's car, they ran over him. He died shortly afterwards.

The police immediately launched a manhunt and arrested one of the murderers.

Montejo's death has caused great "despair and sorrow", said Archbishop Jorge Alberto Ossa Soto, the diocesan administrator of the diocese of Ocaña.

A political motive for the crime cannot be ruled out, given the priest's commitment to the victims of Colombia's decades-long civil war.

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