Creman the body of Abimael Guzmán, the founder of Shining Path, CNN witnesses the historic event

(CNN Spanish) – The body of Abimael Guzmán, founder of the Shining Path terrorist group, was cremated this Friday at dawn in the crematorium of the Naval Hospital in Lima. CNN was one of the three media summoned by the Interior Ministry to witness what happened to Guzmán’s body, the largest genocidal in the history of Peru and responsible for more than 30,000 deaths between 1980 and 2000, according to the report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The government imposed a series of restrictions on us for security reasons, we could not record or take pictures. The identity of the body was confirmed by different expert reports.

His ashes have been scattered in a place “of a reserved nature”, as established by the law that was approved by the Peruvian Congress and promulgated on September 17 by President Pedro Castillo, which allowed the cremation after days of debates. However, Interior Minister Juan Carrasco told CNN that he will ask that the area where the ashes were dumped be considered “secret” to avoid later requesting that it be reported.

After 9:30 PM, local time, this Thursday, together with Ricardo León from the newspaper El Comercio and Ángel Páez from La República, we were transferred from the Ministry of the Interior, by a vehicle of this institution, to the Directorate against Terrorism ( Dircote). Then we arrived at the Morgue del Callao, where Guzmán’s remains had been found since September 11, the day he died in a maximum security detention center due to “complications in his health,” the National Institute reported in a statement. Penitentiary. Guzmán, alias “Comrade Gonzalo” and who was in years the most wanted man in Peru, was arrested in 1992 and was serving a life sentence for the crime of terrorism. He was also convicted of illicit drug trafficking.

At midnight, in a necropsy room with white walls and slabs, we saw Guzmán’s body, small, thin and still with the beard that he had maintained for years. It was the same one that, for two decades, plunged Peru into darkness, sowing violence, terror and destroying thousands of families. Two medical examiners, a forensic biologist and a fingerprint expert verified his identity through three expert reports. There were also representatives of the public prosecutor’s office and the ministers of the Interior and Justice Aníbal Torres and the head of the Directorate against Terrorism, General Oscar Arriola.

More than an hour later, Guzmán’s body was placed in a drawer and transferred to the crematorium where he was cremated after 3 AM of the former Shining Path leader, only ashes remain, the same ones in which he converted towns and cities after massacres and car bombs that still echo in the memory of Peruvians.