8/12/2019 Accused witch burned alive in Papua New Guinea as
crowd, including kids, watch
1/3
Accused witch burned alive in Papua New Guinea as crowd,
including kids, watch
Bystanders watch as a woman accused of witchcraft is burned
alive in the Western Highlandsprovincial capital of Mount Hagen in
Papua New Guinea, Feb. 6, 2013. AP
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea A mob stripped, tortured and
bound a woman accused ofwitchcraft, then burned her alive in front
of hundreds of horrified witnesses in a Papua New Guineatown,
police said Friday. It was the latest sorcery-related killing in
this South Pacific island nation.
Bystanders, including many children, watched and some took
photographs of Wednesday's brutalslaying. Grisly pictures were
published on the front pages of the country's biggest
circulatingnewspapers, The National and Post-Courier, while the
prime minister, police and diplomats
condemned the killing.
In rural Papua New Guinea, witchcraft is often blamed for
unexplained misfortunes. Sorcery hastraditionally been countered by
sorcery, but responses to allegations of witchcraft have
becomeincreasingly violent in recent years.
Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old mother, had been accused of
sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boywho died in the hospital
the day before.
She was tortured with a hot iron rod, bound, doused in gasoline,
and then set alight on a pile of car
tires and trash in the Western Highlands provincial capital of
Mount Hagen, national policespokesman Dominic Kakas said.
Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba on Friday blasted Mount
Hagen investigators by phonefor failing to make a single arrest,
Kakas said.
The public were apparently not cooperating with police, and
police carrying out the investigationwere not working hard enough,
Kakas said.
"He was very, very disappointed that there's been no arrest made
as yet," Kakas said.
"The incident happened in broad daylight in front of hundreds of
eyewitnesses and yet we haven'tpicked up any suspects yet," Kakas
added.
Kakas described the victim's husband as the "prime suspect" and
said the man fled the province.Kakas said he did not know if there
was a relationship between the husband and the dead
boy'sfamily.
He said more than 50 people are suspected to have "laid a hand
on the victim" and committedcrimes in the mob attack. While many
children had witnessed the killing, there were no child
suspects, he said.
8/12/2019 Accused witch burned alive in Papua New Guinea as
crowd, including kids, watch
2/3
Kakas said onlookers were shocked by thebrutality but were
powerless to stop themob. Police officers were also present butwere
outnumbered and could not save thewoman, he said. There is an
internalinvestigation underway into what actionpolice at the scene
took.
Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga describedthe slaying as
"shocking and devilish."
"We are in the 21st century and this istotally unacceptable,"
Kulunga said in astatement.
He suggested courts be established to dealwith sorcery
allegations, as an alternative to
villagers dispensing justice.
Prime Minister Pete O'Neill said he hadinstructed police to use
all availablemanpower to bring the killers to justice.
"It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our
society should be targeted for allegedsorcery or wrongs that they
actually have nothing to do with," O'Neill said.
The U.S. Embassy in the national capital Port Moresby issued a
statement calling for a sustainedinternational partnership to
enhance anti-gender-based violence laws throughout the Pacific.
The embassy of Australia, Papua New Guinea's colonial ruler
until independence in 1975 and now itsbiggest foreign aid donor,
said: "We join ... all reasonable Papua New Guineans in looking
forward tothe perpetrators being brought to justice."
In other recent sorcery-related killings, police arrested 29
people in July last year accused of beingpart of a cannibal cult in
Papua New Guinea's jungle interior and charged them with the
murders of
seven suspected witch doctors.
Kakas could not immediately say what had become of the 29 since
their first court appearances lastyear in the north coast province
of Madang.
8/12/2019 Accused witch burned alive in Papua New Guinea as
crowd, including kids, watch
3/3
Police alleged the cult members ate theirvictims' brains raw and
made soup from theirpenises.
The killers allegedly believed that their victimspracticed
sorcery and that they had beenextorting money as well as demanding
sex frompoor villagers for their supernatural services.
By eating witch doctors' organs, the cultmembers believed they
would attainsupernatural powers.
Murder is punishable by death in Papua NewGuinea, a poor tribal
nation of 7 million people
who are mostly subsistence farmers. But no onehas been hanged
since independence.
2013 The Associated Press. All RightsReserved. This material may
not be published,broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
