Chin Peng, a wily and fanatical communist guerrilla who was decorated by the British for helping expel Japanese invaders from Southeast Asia during World War II and then led a brutal 12-year insurgency against the English colonial rulers in his native Malaya, died Sept. 16 in a Bangkok hospital.

He was reported to be 88, but his age could not immediately be confirmed. The cause was cancer, his former lawyer, Darshan Singh Khaira, told the Associated Press....