• 50th anniversary The execution of Che Guevara: secrets, lies and hidden plots

  • Bolivian media that gave the scoop on Che's death and other exclusives recount the details of a historical coverage and request the opening of the archives

The Bolivian soldier Mario Terán Salazar, who claimed to have killed the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla Ernesto

Che

Guevara in 1967, died this Thursday at the age of 80 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in eastern Bolivia, his relatives reported.

"He died of prostate cancer,"

his son Mario confirmed to AFP, adding that the soldier died around midnight on Thursday, at 5:00 a.m. on the peninsula.

"He was sick and there was nothing to do," said Gary Prado, the soldier who captured

Che

in the Bolivian jungle 54 years ago.

"The family and comrades from the Armed Forces notified me because he was admitted to the Military Hospital," explained Prado, who was Terán's instructor at the sergeant's school.

On October 8, 1967, the Bolivian army arrested Guevara,

a mythical figure of armed revolutionary action

during the Cold War, with the support of two Cuban-American CIA agents.

Che was

at

the head of a handful of guerrillas who had survived combat, hunger and disease.

Wounded in combat, he was taken to an abandoned school in the town of La Higuera.

He spent his last night there: he

was riddled with bullets the next day by Terán

with the approval of President René Barrientos (1964-1969), a fierce anti-communist.

The body of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara exposed to the public a day after he was assassinated, in Vallegrande, Bolivia.AFP

"That was the worst moment of my life.

At that moment I saw

Che

big, very big, huge. His eyes shone brightly," Terán recounted then.

"I felt that he was on top of me and when he stared at me, it made me dizzy. I thought that with a quick movement

Che

could take the weapon away from me.

"Be calm -he told me- and aim well!

He's going to kill a man!'

Then I took a step back, towards the threshold of the door, I closed my eyes and I fired", narrated the soldier.

At the age of 39,

Che

became a legend, while his inert body and open-eyed face were

exhibited like a trophy in the neighboring town of Vallegrande

, an image

immortalized by AFP photographer Marc Hutten.

Anonymity

After 30 years of service, Terán retired and remained anonymous, avoiding the press.

He even

went so far as to affirm that Guevara's murderer had not been him,

but another soldier with the same name and surname.

After completing his medical studies and multiple trips that forged his convictions, Guevara, born in the Argentine city of Rosario, met Raúl and Fidel Castro in Mexico before enlisting in the guerrilla that

brought the "bearded" to power in Cuba

, in 1959.

Years after his unsuccessful attempt to spread the fire of the armed revolution in the Congo, months of "disappearance" followed, before he undertook his last guerrilla warfare in Bolivia.

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