Colombian archbishop assassinated

CALI, Colombia (CNN) -- The Roman Catholic archbishop of Cali, Colombia, has been assassinated minutes after he celebrated Mass, authorities said.

Witnesses said Isaias Duarte Cancino, 63, was shot on Saturday night by two men on motorcycles in a poor district in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city.

Duarte was dead on arrival at Carlos Holmes Trujillo Hospital in Cali, hospital director Ricardo Vanegas said. TV footage showed people weeping outside the hospital.

Edilberto Ceballos, Duarte's driver, told Caracol radio network that the archbishop was shot several times, including in the head.

"Two guys came and opened fire and hit him three or four times, maybe even six times," the driver said. "I saw him dead."

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing.

Cancino, one of the spokesmen for the Catholic church in Colombia, was well-known for being a harsh critic of the region's guerrilla groups. Before the country's last legislative elections, he warned of links between the guerrillas and drug dealers.

He was appointed archbishop of Cali in 1995 after serving for seven years as the bishop of Apartadó.

In 1999, he excommunicated members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) after they abducted dozens of worshippers from a Catholic church in Cali. A year later, he wrote a newspaper editorial criticizing ELN and FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, as well as the government for its failure to stop rebel attacks.

Journalist Fernando Ramos contributed to this report.