General Gary Prado Salmon led military operation backing US secret service agency agents, that defeated Che’s side in 1967 in Bolivia.
After one day of Che Guevara’s arrest, an officer called Mario Teran, who died last year shot and killed Che.
Che Guevara was killed when Cold War was at it’s height and Washington was extremely concerned about communist influence in Latin America, including Che Guevara’s activities.
Che Guevara left Cuba after the triumph of the 1959 revolution and went to lead guerrilla movements in other countries.
He was a key ally of Cuban Communist leader ‘Fidel Castro’ and became the hero of the Communists world.
Gen Prado’s son described his father as “an extraordinary person”, who left “a legacy of love, integrity and courage”.
After ambushing Guevara’s guerrilla group Gen Prado was made a national hero for having defended the Bolivian military regime.
He had led US-trained Bolivian Rangers in a remote jungle region where Che Guevara’s group, originally numbering about 120, had declined to just 22, and kills Che.
Since 1981 Gen Prado had been a wheelchair user after a bullet fired accidentally and hit him in the spine. He wrote a book about his 1967 triumph, called “How I Captured Che.”
His Son said that “for him capturing Che was not the most important thing he did in his life – rather, it was to contribute to making the armed forces a democratic institution that would respect the constitution and laws”.
Che Guevara was executed in the Bolivian village of La Higuera, 830km (516 miles) south of La Paz, and his body was buried in a secret location by Bolivian and US people.
In 1997 his remains were discovered, exhumed and returned to Cuba, where he was reburied.
