 Later that morning on October 9 , Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed . The order was relayed to the unit holding Guevara by Félix Rodríguez despite the United States government 's desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation . The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was Mario Terán , an alcoholic 31 @-@ year @-@ old sergeant in the Bolivian army who had personally requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company , all with the same first name of " Mario " , had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara 's band of guerrillas . To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story that the Bolivian government planned to release to the public , Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán not to shoot Guevara in the head , but to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army . Gary Prado , the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara , said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara were so there would be no possibility for Guevara to escape from prison , and also so there would be no drama in regard to a public trial where adverse publicity might happen . 
