Reuters
Friday; Page A26

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept. 6 -- Unidentified gunmen killed the 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.

Jairo Rojas, 37, who had 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 Wednesday evening.

"From the information I have, it appears that he realized they [the gunmen] were following him. He drove through the [closed] gates of [his garage] with his vehicle
and they killed him," said Bogota's police chief, Gen. Jorge Linares.

An assistant of Rojas, a member of Pastrana's Conservative party, said the lawmaker had received multiple death threats.

"He had been the object of threats," said the assistant, Alberto Almonacid.

Rojas had taken over the peace commission following the December assassination of its president, Diego Turbay.

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