Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (Spanish: Rodrigo Lara Bonilla; August 11, 1946 – April 30, 1984) was a Colombian lawyer and politician, who served as Minister of Justice under President Belisario Betancur, and was assassinated by orders of Pablo Escobar because of his work as Minister in prosecuting cocaine traffickers mainly belonging to the Medellín Cartel.

“Colombia must know the reality of certain captains who believed that the patrimonial amnesty meant the oblivion of the crimes that their holders committed to achieve their fantastic tortures, they are wrong, and it is not with certificates of good conduct obtained fraudulently or thanks to impunity, that they will be able to hide their criminal past and present before a morally worthy and respectable country”In August 1983, Lara, who belonged to the New Liberalism created by him and Luis Carlos Galán, was appointed by President Belisario Betancur as Minister of Justice, replacing Bernardo Gaitán Mahecha.

Jairo Ortega, Escobar's ally in Congress, presented a check (eventually shown to have been falsified) to the chamber, supposedly drawn by known drug trafficker Evaristo Porras.

He also relied on Colonel Jaime Ramírez to uncover the complex coca laboratories of Tranquilandia and Villacoca, located in the jungles of southern Colombia, a fact that was made public on March 28, 1984.

[8] On April 30, 1984, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was in his 1976 Mercedes-Benz W123, on 127th Street north of Bogotá after passing through the Autopista Norte towards the Recreo de los Frailes neighborhood where he lived with his family,[9][10][11] when Byron Velasquez and Ivan Dario Guisado drove past his SUV convoy on a Yamaha motorcycle.