Peru: Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán’s remains cremated | They did not specify where the ashes were deposited

The corpse of Abimael Guzmán, leader and founder of the Maoist organization Sendero Luminoso, was cremated this Friday at dawn and the authorities maintain a reserve at the place where the ashes were laid, confirmed official sources from Peru.

The interior ministry of this country said in a statement that at 3:20 a.m., “at the headquarters of the hospital of the Naval Medical Center in Callao, the cremation of the body of Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reinoso began”, and that the procedure ended two hours later.

The fate of the ashes of Guzmán, whose body has remained in that city’s morgue since his death at 86 years in prison on September 11, has not been disclosed by the Peruvian government and is being held in reserve.

The cremation, carried out in accordance with a law that provides for the fate of guerrilla leaders for national security, was assisted by the Interior Ministers, Juan Carrasco, and the Minister of Justice, Aníbal Torres.

A few hours earlier and under heavy police protection, the body had been transferred from the morgue in Callao to the crematorium of the naval hospital, located a short distance in the same port.

Authorities did not allow press entry and did not indicate whether there was a film or graphic recording of the cremation, which right-wing parliamentarians had claimed.

The act coincided with the Institutional Armed Forces Day, which Peru celebrates this Friday.

“On the day of the Armed Forces, the executive complied with the cremation and final disposal of the ashes of the genocidal Abimael Guzmán. Today more than ever, we defend the memory of the thousands of Peruvians killed by terror”, the interior minister tweeted.

The dispute over the remains of Abigael Guzmán

The cremation ended a dispute between the authorities and the widow, who asked the prison to dispose of Guzmán’s remains and accused the government of “murder”.

Guzmán’s body had been in the possession of the prosecution since his death, after a prosecutor rejected the request of the imprisoned widow, Elena Yparaguirre, to bury him through a third person.

The prosecution, backed by a recent law, alleged national security reasons for cremating the body and not handing it over to the widow, fearing that the tomb would become a place of pilgrimage for the Shining Path, a group considered terrorist.

The Shining Path launched a “people’s war” marked by bloody actions between 1980 and 2000 in a conflict that left 70,000 dead, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.