Che Guavara's Hair Sold

A lock of hair taken from Che Guevara's body has sold for £58,000 at a US auction.
It sold to the only bidder, who runs a bookshop near Houston, for the reserve price, plus a buyer's premium.

The Dallas sale prompted protests from Che's widow and his supporters, reports the BBC.

The sale is not a first for Heritage Auction Galleries, which has previously sold locks from the heads of Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.

Bill Butler, 61, placed his bid by telephone for the 3ins lock of Guevara's hair.

In the same lot were photographs of the dead revolutionary's body and fingerprints taken after he was shot in Bolivia in 1967.

Heritage Auction Galleries had tightened security for the sale, because of fears of protests from socialists unhappy that profits were being made from the revolutionary's death.

Guevara, an Argentine who became a Cuban guerrilla leader, was tracked down and killed in the Bolivian jungle by a group of CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers in 1967.

A former US intelligence officer, Gustavo Villoldo, who took part in the capture and execution, said he removed the lock of hair and took photos and fingerprints as proof that the mission was completed.