Shining Path, a Maoist rebel group, was active in the 1980s and 1990s, spreading terror throughout the country through a bombing campaign targeting buildings and infrastructure such as electricity towers.
His prominence began to fade after Guzman, known as Comrade Gonzalo, was captured and sentenced to life in prison in 1992.
“At approximately 6:40 a.m. at the El Callao Naval Base’s maximum security detention center, prisoner Abimael Guzman Reynoso died due to complications with his health,” the Penitentiary Institute said in a brief statement. .
The naval base the Pebble is to about 15 kilometers to the east of the capital of Peru, Lima.
Under Guzman’s leadership, the group declared war on the Peruvian government in 1980, carrying out bombings and assassination operations, which officially killed more than 30,000 Peruvians over the next 20 years.
Another 30,000 Peruvians died at the hands of the government and paramilitary groups in the fight against the group, a government commission said in 2003.
The group also carried out several devastating attacks in Lima. It blew up the power transmission towers, causing blackouts throughout the city, bombing factories and causing explosives near government offices and inside the ruling party’s political headquarters.
The attack on Tarata, a 1992 residential street in Lima, killed at least 25 people and was the deadliest assault on the group.
In the southern and southern Peruvian countryside, where the rebels were strongest, the Camino Luminós waged a campaign of assassination against government officials, heads of state-owned agricultural groups, business owners and even peasants. who opposed the guerrillas. Political rivals, including other Marxists or leftists, were also targets of the group.
CNN’s Hannah Ryan contributed to this article.