LIMA, Peru (AP) — Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the brutal Shining Path insurgency in Peru, died on Saturday in a military hospital after an illness, the Peruvian government said.

Guzmán, 86, died at 6:40 a.m. after suffering from an infection, Justice Minister Aníbal Torres said.

Guzman, a former philosophy professor, launched an insurgency against the state in 1980 and presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations in the years that followed. He was captured in 1992 and sentenced in life in prison for terrorism and other crimes.