Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia — A DEA agent has died in a robbery attempt in Colombia, U.S. Ambassador Michael McKinley said Friday. Colombian authorities said the American agent was stabbed four times.
McKinley told local Radio Caracol that the anti-drug agent had left a Bogota restaurant with his friends after watching the NBA final on Thursday night. He said the robbery attempt occurred after the agent got into a taxi.
Gen. Jose Roberto Leon, director of Colombia’s National Police, identified the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent as 43-year-old James Terry Watson, who had worked in the country for about a year and a half.
Colombian authorities did not say where Watson was from in the United States.
Col. Camilo Cabana of the National Police said that the taxi Watson was riding in was intercepted by another cab about three blocks from the restaurant. Two men got out and tried to pull the American out of the vehicle, stabbing him three times in the chest and once in the leg, Cabana said.
The assailants abandoned the agent in the street, where it was found shortly afterward by a police patrol. Watson was taken to a clinic several blocks away, but had already died.
Police were reviewing area security cameras in hopes of identifying the assailants. The police department has offered a reward of 50 million pesos ($25,800) for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press