The Mario Teran Salazar officer killed the revolutionary Argentino-Cuban leader on October 9, 1967, after his arrest the day before in the Bolivian forest. He died in Bolivia at the age of 80.
Le Monde with AFP
Bolivian officer Mario Terran Salazar, who said he killed the Argentino-Cuban guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara in 1967, died on Thursday at the age of 80 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in the east of the Bolivia, indicated his loved ones.
“He died: he was sick and there was nothing to do,” said France-Press (AFP) Gary Prado, the officer who captured Che in the Bolivian jungle he 54 years ago.
m. Prado learned the death of Mr. Salazar, who had been his student from the officer school, Thursday early in the morning. “I was warned by his family and armed forces comrades because he was in a military hospital,” he said. The hospital refused to confirm the death and cause of death because of “medical secret”.
On October 8, 1967, the Bolivian army stops Guevara, the mythical figure of the revolutionary action armed during the Cold War, with the support of two CIA-US agents from the CIA.
Cheer has a handle of guerrillas that had survived combat, hunger and illness in the Bolivian mountains. Injured in battle, he had been transported to an abandoned school of the village of La Higuera.
“Aims well! You will kill a man!”
This is where he spends his last night: he was shot the next day by Teran Salazar with the approval of the Bolivian President René Barrientos (1964-1969), fierce anticommunist.
“This is the worst moment of my life. I saw the che tall, very big, huge. His eyes shone with a thousand lights,” said Teran Salazar at the time. “Be quiet, he told me, and aims well! You will kill a man! Then I took a step back, to the door, I closed my eyes and I pulled”, told the officer.
At 39, the CHE has become a legend, while his body was exposed as a trophy in the nearby town of Vallegrande, an image immortalized by the photographer of AFP, Marc Hutten.
After thirty years of service, Teran Salazar retired and remained anonymous, avoiding the press. He even has a time claimed that the assassin of Guevara was not him but another soldier bearing the same name and the same first name.