Who was Mario Teran Salazar ?
The Bolivian soldier who killed Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the legendary revolutionary guerilla, died at 80. The body of Argentina-born guerrilla commander Ernesto’ Che’ Guevara is revealed on a laundry sink in Valle Grande, Bolivia, in a photograph taken by AFP journalist Marc Hutten on October 10, 1967. The legacy of Che Guevara has been discussed 50 years after his death in Bolivia.
Mario Terán “simply complied with his duty as a sergeant of the army,” according to retired general Gary Prado, who headed the party that caught Che Guevara following a months-long hunt in 1967.
What was the cause of his death?
“He died. He was ill, and nothing could be done,” According to AFP, Gary Prado, a former Bolivian soldier who assisted in the capture of Che Guevara in the forest region 54 years ago.
“The family and comrades from the armed forces told me because he was being treated in the military hospital” Santa Cruz de la Sierra is a city in the eastern part of the Sierra Nevada. Due to “medical confidentiality,” the hospital refuses to comment on Teran’s death.
“He died of prostate cancer,” his son Mario told Reporters, adding that the soldier died on Thursday around midnight (04:00 GMT). His wife and two children survive him.
Guevara, an Argentinian physician, rose to legendary prominence as a key figure in Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution, overthrowing tyrant Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
After several years as a high-ranking official in Cuba’s government, he went on to try – and fail – to lead other insurgencies in Africa and then South America. Bolivian soldiers finally hunted down his tiny band in 1967.
After orders to execute the already injured Guevara, then 39, arrived from the capital, Terán was chosen to kill him.
“It was the worst moment of my life,” he told reporters later. “I saw Che large, very large. His eyes shone intensely. I felt him coming over me, and when he fixed his gaze on me, it made me dizzy.
“‘Calm yourself,’ he told me, ‘and aim well! You are going to kill a man!’ Then I took a step back toward the door, closed my eyes, and fired.”
According to Guevara’s biographers, his first shots missed Guevara’s chest but hit him later.
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