Bogota (AFP) - Carlos Gaviria, a jurist and former leftist presidential candidate in Colombia, has died at the age of 77, his political party said.
Hospitalized March 14 with a respiratory infection, he died on Tuesday.
Gaviria came in second in Colombia's 2006 presidential elections, posting the best showing ever by a leftist candidate.
A lawyer who attended Harvard Law School, Gaviria was a member of Colombia's Constitutional Court for eight years.
"A great man is dead. Carlos Gaviria, a maestro of democracy," said Bogota mayor Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla and fellow member of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole.
President Juan Manuel Santos saluted Gaviria as "a great jurist and a great Colombian."
Gaviria threw his support behind Santos' re-election last year, surprising many in Colombia. But it was consistent with his support for Santos' peace talks with the leftist FARC guerrilla movement.
Born May 8, 1937, Gaviria was a notable defender of human rights, which brought death threats from right-wing paramilitary groups that forced him to go into exile in Argentina in the 1980s.
At the Constitutional Court, he pushed for legalization of possession of small quantities of drugs, for the rights of homosexuals and indigenous people, as well as for euthanasia and abortion.
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