Peru: suspense remains over the fate of the body of Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path

The fate of the remains of the founder of the terrorist group Shining Path, Abimael Guzman, remains in abeyance after a judge ruled inadmissible a request for the surrender of his body to a woman who is not the direct family of the deceased.

Peruvian law does not have a protocol for how to proceed in case of controversial prisoners like Guzmán, considered the main cause of the bloodbath Peru experienced between 1980 and 2000 which left thousands dead in its confrontation with security forces.

For its part, President Pedro Castillo left the fate of the remains in the hands of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecutor’s Office). The Presidency of the Republic indicated, via its Twitter account, that “as a government, we respect the law and the independence of powers”. And he added: “It is not for us to decide on the final disposition of the body of terrorist Abimael Guzmán, because it is the responsibility of the prosecution.”

The law indicates that a corpse must be returned to its family. The government has also suggested that he be cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea to prevent a burial and funeral worship of the deceased.. In 2018, authorities destroyed a mausoleum in a cemetery in Lima where it had been announced that Guzmán would be buried.

On Sunday evening, Magistrate Sergio Núñez declared inadmissible the habeas corpus requested by Elena Iparraguirre, the wife of Guzmán, who is imprisoned for life in a prison in Lima and had appointed Iris Quiñónez, a woman who is not of her family, to claim the body of her husband. The law states that a corpse is only given to a direct relative. The couple have no children.

Iparraguirre has granted “a written power of attorney” to Iris Quiñonez. Criminal lawyer Carlos Caro told the newspaper Trade that Quiñónez also had to have a power of attorney authenticated by a notary. If that doesn’t happen in 36 hours, it will be up to the state to decide what to do with the body., he said.

Guzmán’s wife’s defense argues that the body should be handed over to Quiñónez because Iparraguirre is imprisoned, which prevents her from personally receiving her husband’s body.

Previously, the prosecution had indicated in a statement that the body of Guzmán, who died the day before at the age of 86, would be handed over “to relatives”.

At the autopsy, it was determined that Guzmán died of “bilateral pneumonia caused by a pathological agent”. I know He was professor of philosophy at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga and later led the only Maoist group in Latin America. In 1980, he began a struggle for power that left thousands dead, most of them from the Andes and the Amazon.

Authorities debated what to do with Guzman’s body over the weekend.

Benedicto Jiménez, a lawyer and retired police colonel who led the capture of Guzmán in 1992, told reporters on Sunday that Peru “never thought about what to do with the body if a senior Sendero leader died in prison. Bright to avoid martyrology “. “Things must be transparent,” for the country to avoid problems, Jiménez said after leaving a mass in Lima Cathedral, which he attended with 34 agents from a police intelligence group with whom he surprised Guzmán in a house in the Peruvian capital on September 12, 1992.

It is not known whether Iparraguirre will ask to bury or cremate her husband’s remains. Guzmán and Iparraguirre, an early childhood teacher, lived on the second floor of a front house where a ballet dancer lived on the first floor.

Guzmán died at 6:40 a.m. on Saturday in a military prison. He suffered from psoriasis, a dermatological condition that made the skin red and cracked. The police were aware of the disease before her capture because investigators who followed in her footsteps found boxes of pills to treat her in the trash bags of the house where she was hidden.

The report of the abduction of his body drawn up by the prosecution indicated that they had found him lying on his bed. He had a long beard and wore a beige jacket, lead-colored pants, blue socks and a disposable diaper. On the ring finger of his right hand, he had his gold wedding ring. Guzmán and Iparraguirre married in 2010, two years after both were sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the murder of 69 peasants in the village of Santiago de Lucanamarca in 1983, in a new trial after one carried out in the years 1990.

For now, Guzmán’s body remains in the morgue in the coastal province of El Callao, near the prison where he died.

The Peruvian government had warned the day before that Any attempt to pay homage to the founder of the Shining Path or to carry out demonstrations in his memory will be considered a crime in the defense of terrorism, punishable by four years in prison.

The Shining Path began its struggle in the Andean region of Ayacucho. A truth commission that has studied the internal armed conflict has indicated that the confrontation between the senderistas and the security forces has left nearly 70,000 dead.

(With information from AP and EFE)

KEEP READING: