Rebel leaders marry behind bars

The jailed leaders of Peru's Shining Path rebels got married in a maximum-security prison yesterday after staging a hunger strike earlier this year to demand the right to marry behind bars.

Abimael Guzman, 75, founder of the Shining Path, married his partner of two decades, Elena Iparraguirre – No 2 in the rebel group – in the naval prison near Lima where Guzman is serving life imprisonment for terrorism and rights crimes.

"The civil marriage has been carried out on the grounds of the naval base," Ruben Rodriguez, the head of the National Penitentiary Institute, told local radio.

Mr Rodriguez was a witness of the 15-minute ceremony.