Colombian news website Prensa Rural reports that Restrepo was shot while he was riding a
motorcycle between Belen de Umbria and Marmato municipalities.

The local parish priest had been reportedly fighting for two years for the rights of artisan miners in the area, and against an open-pit mining exploitation project carried out by the gold transnational corporation.

The opposers to the mining project have warned that the installation of Gran Colombia Gold will
cause traditional gold activity that had taken place for five centuries, to disappear.

The company, which is the main suspect of the crime, reportedly issued a press release regretting
Restrepo’s death and expressing its rejection to violence.

However, Restrepo had reported death threats from Gran Colombia, the representative of the civic board of Marmato, Yamil Amar Cataño, told Noticias Uno Colombia.

“He told me that employees of the mining transnational corporation had asked him to move to
another parish several times”, said Amar Cataño in a phone interview with the Colombian TV
network.

Restrepo’s murder was repudiated by social organizations of Colombia.

“In the recent months it has become evident that the ruling classes in our country continue to opt
for exterminating dissent. Women, advocates of land restitution, trade unionists, young people,
environmental activists have been murdered throughout this year”, they warn in a press release of the Proceso Minga Comunera, which met on Saturday September 3 to analyze Restrepo’s death.

The document says that besides his murder, 16 year-old Diego Felipe Becerra was also killed in the streets of Bogota by state agents.

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