Abimael Guzmán: Encyclopedia II - Abimael Guzmán - Capture

Abimael Guzmán - Capture

In 1992, during the first administration of President Alberto Fujimori, the Peruvian National Directorate Against Terrorism (DINCOTE) began casing several residences in Lima because agents suspected that terrorists were using them as safehouses. One of those residences, in the middle-class neighborhood of Surco, had been operating as a ballet studio. The DINCOTE operatives routinely searched the garbage taken out from the house. The house was supposedly inhabited by only one person, the dance teacher Maritza Garrido Lecca, but it was soon noticed that the household produced more garbage than one person could account for. Furthermore, agents found discarded tubes of cream for the treatment of psoriasis, an ailment that Guzmán was known to have. On 12 September 1992, an elite unit of the DINCOTE raided the Surco residence. On the second floor of the house, they found and arrested Guzmán and eight others, including Laura Zambrano and Elena Iparraguirre, Guzman's female companion. (This episode inspired Nicholas Shakespeare's novel The Dancer Upstairs).

At the time of capture, the police seized Guzmán's computer, in which they found a very detailed register of his armed forces and the weapons each regiment, militia and support base had in each region of the country. Guzmán had registered that, in 1990, the Shining Path had 23,430 members armed with approximately 235 revolvers, 500 rifles and 300 other items of military hardware such as grenades. The government tried to portray Guzmán as a crazed psychopath and common criminal, publicizing photos of him in striped prison garb, and promised that Sendero Luminoso's rank and file who turned themselves in would get lenient treatment.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Capture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki