Lima: The girlfriend of Peru's left radical group chief, Jose Flores Leon, has been arrested from a shopping centre in the central city of Huanuco, Spain's EFE news agency reported.

Deysi Palomino Salazar, 43, was detained Thursday as she was leaving a shopping centre in Huanuco, the interior ministry said in a statement Friday.

Officials said she was the girlfriend of Jose Flores Leon, the highest-ranking member of the Shining Path rebel group.

The arrest of Palomino would one day help capture the Shining Path chief, officials said.

A preliminary investigation found that Palomino provided accommodation and food to the rebel commander, with whom she is believed to be romantically linked, the ministry said.

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a report in 2003 blamed the Shining Path for killing nearly 70,000 people (in politically motivated killings) in the Andean nation between 1980 and 2000.

 

Source : IANS