VALLEGRANDE. Bolivia, July 6: Agen tine and Cuban scientists on Saturday began exhuming skeletons from a mass grave in a remote BoliviEin village they believe may contain the remains of legendary guerilla Ernesto "Che” Guevara, reports Reuter.

Cuban team leader Jorge Gonzalez told reporters at the site that the seven skeletons would probably all be removed from the grave by the end of the day and taken to a laboratoiy installed in the Vallegrande village hospital.

Ironically, the Senor de Malta Hospital was where Bolivian troops laid out the bearded revolutionary's partly naked body to exhibit it as a trophy to international photographers on October 10. 1967.

Scientists said, on Wednesday that one of the skeletons with apparent reddish traces of

formaldehyde was "very probably". Guervara’s they believe the other remains are those of Che's hapless band of Cuban. Bolivian and Peruvian rebels.

Witnesses have described how Che's body was put In formaldehyde after his execution in the village schoolhouse.

But scientists say that any definitive identification of Che's remains could take up to two weeks.

The Agentine-born leftist icon and hero of the Cuban revolution was trying to export Cuban Communism to the South American mainland when he was captured — wounded and starving on October 8. 1967 and later shot by a soldier.

He was buried at a secret site after his executioners chopped off his hands as proof they had captured him.