Rebel leader sails off to underground cell

CALLAO - Abimael Guzman, leader of Peru's Shining Path rebels, is moved at the weekend from a rocky island in the Pacific to a new maximum-security prison at a navy base in Callao, where he will be held in an underground cell, agencies report.

Guzman, captured in September and sentenced to life in prison, made the trip on board a gunboat, guarded by marines and escorted by patrol boats and a helicopter. He sat handcuffed in a chair, wearing an orange lifejacket. Guzman appeared not to have lost weight: President Alberto Fujimori recently said he had lost weight and was depressed. Mr Fujimori decided to move Guzman, 58, to reduce security costs and allow fishermen to return to the rich shellfish grounds around San Lorenzo island. Navy patrols shot dead five fishermen when their boats approached the island.

In Puno, in south-eastern Peru, Victor Polay, leader of Peru's second-largest rebel group, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Saturday by judges who wore hoods to conceal their identity. Polay, known as Comandante Rolando, was arrested in June in a Lima restaurant after being recognised by employees, who called the police.

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