Remains of Peru rebel leader now in police custody

The remains of Abimael Guzman, the former leader of Peru's Shining Path guerilla movement, were taken on Saturday to the forensic office of the local attorney so his family can reclaim the body. Guzmán, 86, died earlier Saturday in a military hospital after succumbing to an infection, the Peruvian government said.

Sebastian Chavez, Abimael Guzman's lawyer, said that according to the law, it was Guzman's widow who should decide what happens to the body. A former philosophy professor, Guzman launched an insurgency against the state in 1980 and presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations in the years that followed. Tens of thousands of people - many of them civilians - were killed. Guzmán was captured in 1992 and sentenced to life in prison for terrorism and other crimes.