Father hikes 10 hours with his son's dead body

Nearly three weeks after Cesar Vilca disappeared while fighting Shining Path rebels, his father has brought his body home after hiking into dense jungle to retrieve it.

Dionisio Vilca's journey has triggered angry recriminations in Peru, after he said in a radio interview that it took him and two local Indians 10 hours to carry the decomposed body out of the jungle wrapped in a blanket.

His son, a police officer, was shot on 13 April having been flown by helicopter into the mountainous area with two colleagues to search for three dozen construction workers who had been kidnapped by the rebels.

Outrage had already spread over the authorities' inability to rescue a second police officer who reappeared last weekend after making his own way out. Several congressmen have demanded the resignation of the Interior and Defence ministers for incompetence.

AP