The Bolivian soldier who pulled the trigger for the execution of Argentine revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara, died at the age of 80.
The retired Bolivian general, Gary Prado, said that the soldier who fired the bullet that killed Guevara, his name was Mario Teran, was a sergeant in the army, and what he did was in the performance of his military duty.
Retired General Prado was supervising the group that arrested Guevara in 1967, after many months of prosecution.
Speaking to the local radio “Companera”, the former military official said that the soldier who killed Guevara died after a long struggle with illness.
The late Bolivian soldier’s wife is still alive, along with two of her children.
Guevara, an Argentine doctor who became an icon in the Cuban revolution that, with Fidel Castro, gained power, following the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s rule.
After holding a senior position in Cuba for a few years, Guevara tried to play “rebellious” and rebel roles in other regions of the world, whether in Africa or South America, but his new endeavors were not crowned with the same success.
Guevara’s group was monitored in Bolivia in 1967, and soldier Teran was chosen to shoot Guevara, who was originally wounded, at the age of thirty-nine years
The soldier later said that that moment was the worst of his life, adding that he felt a sense of dread, at the time, as he looked at Guevara, “I felt dizzy.”
And the late said that Guevara asked the soldier who was going to kill him to calm down and told him, “Calm yourself, I’m fine, and you are going to kill a man.”
The late Bolivian soldier said that he then stepped back, at the door, closed his eyes and shot the icon of the Cuban Revolution.