Avelino Arredondo

Arredondo was a strong supporter of a rival faction of the ruling Colorado Party government of Uruguayan president Juan Idiarte Borda.

This was widely publicized, including in El Día, edited by José Batlle y Ordóñez, where Arredondo's name also mysteriously appeared in connection with this incident, although he was ostensibly unconnected with this attempt on Idiarte's life.

On August 25, 1897 Arredondo assassinated Idiarte in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo as he emerged from a church service.

Arredondo's act of shooting Idiarte dead is hitherto the only instance of the assassination of a sitting President in the history of Uruguay.

Arredondo later featured in the writings of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who was an acute observer of Uruguayan history and politics; the story Avelino Arredondo appears in Borges's The Book of Sand (1975).